


Husbands: Two Years In

by unfolded73



Series: Labels [5]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Blow Jobs, Canon Gay Character, Canon Queer Relationship, Depression, Friendship, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Married Life, Married Sex, Oral Sex, Therapy, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:35:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25403200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded73/pseuds/unfolded73
Summary: A year in the life of Patrick Brewer, about two years into his marriage with David.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & Patrick Brewer
Series: Labels [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602178
Comments: 271
Kudos: 538





	1. Winter

**Author's Note:**

> **_Husband,_** _n. a male partner in a marriage_
> 
> This fic is complete, and will be posted over the course of the next two weeks. While I'm including it as part of the "Labels" series, the preceding fics are not required reading.
> 
> It should be noted that Patrick, who is struggling with depression in this story, is an unreliable narrator sometimes when it comes to his depression.
> 
> Thanks to high-seas-swan for cheerleading and B13_MaybeThisTime for many valuable comments (and also cheerleading).

Patrick stuck his head behind the beige curtain of the storeroom at Rose Apothecary. “Bethany, can you cover the register? I’ve got to get to my council meeting.”

“Sure,” she said, leaving off from the merchandise she’d been unpacking and joining him behind the counter. 

“I should be back in an hour and a half,” he said, slipping his laptop into his messenger bag. 

“No problem. Is David planning to come back to the store today?” she asked.

“I doubt it. He’s gone more than halfway to Thornbridge to meet with potential vendors, so I expect he’ll be late getting back.” Patrick’s thumb strayed to the smooth gold of his wedding ring and he gave it a turn, an ingrained habit now after a year and a half of marriage. 

“Okay,” Bethany said to him before turning to the customer who had just approached the register. “Find everything you were looking for today?” she asked in a cheerful, retail clerk voice.

Patrick ducked into the back again to get his coat and gloves and hat, pulling them on and zipping his parka up to his neck before braving the icy temperatures outside. Not for the first time, he wished the store had a vestibule and another set of doors to keep the cold from rushing in every time people came and went during the winter months. He made a mental note to add that to their wish list for a second Rose Apothecary location, when and if that ever became a reality. 

David was certainly invested in the idea, spending more time out on the road these days, wooing new vendors or shoring up renewal contracts with existing ones. Hiring Bethany meant they didn’t need to be in the store at the same time, and while the flexibility was more than worth it in terms of the time it gave them to work on growing the business, Patrick had to admit he missed the old days sometimes. When it was only him and David at the store together, sneaking into the back to make out when things were slow.

On the other hand, there was probably something to be said for not spending every hour of every day together, he told himself. Marriages thrived on a little bit of separation. But looking up at the grey sky while he walked through town, it was hard not to feel lonely, the oppressive winter weighing him down.

Patrick ducked into the town hall, always drafty in winter, and pulled his hat and gloves off as he made his way to the desk he used during council meetings and during the one afternoon a week that it was his turn to be on duty, handing out permits and answering questions. It was a good system in a town too small to pay for municipal employees, and helping his fellow townspeople was probably his favorite part of serving on town council.

“Patrick,” Ronnie muttered as he passed by her desk. “Kind of you to grace us with your presence.”

Patrick glanced at his phone. “I’m literally one minute late, Ronnie.”

“One minute late is late.”

“Also, Roland’s not here yet,” Patrick said as he dropped into his desk chair and set up his laptop to take the minutes of their meeting. Ronnie had been quick to inform him that taking minutes always fell to the newest member on town council, although when he expressed his surprise at the idea of Moira Rose doing that job, she’d had to admit that Moira had never actually taken any minutes. Patrick easily agreed to take over from Bob, whom everyone agreed had been terrible at it.

Ronnie just rolled her eyes and waved a hand dismissively at him. She had sort of supported Patrick when he ran unopposed for Moira’s vacated seat (although he also suspected she was behind the whisper campaign to write in Ted the Turtle, Alexis’s former pet who now belonged to Roland Junior — Ted got thirteen percent of the vote), but that didn’t stop her from continuing to needle him at every opportunity.

Roland finally arrived ten minutes later, and they began working their way through the agenda as Roland wolfed down a sizable sandwich at his desk with table manners that his three-year-old son would have looked askance at. They voted on whether to have a stop light installed outside the café (2-2; tabled for further discussion after the next public forum), whether to confer historic landmark status on the old Hockley barn (1-3 nay), and on whether to finalize the calendar for the “Clean up the Creek” days in the summer (4-0 yea).

“What’s next on the agenda, Ronnie?” Roland asked, his mouth full of his lunch, as if he didn’t have a copy of the agenda on his desk. Patrick looked over, and noticed that Roland had emptied a bag of potato chips onto his agenda.

“The annual blood drive,” she replied, consulting the paper in front of her. “Canadian Blood Services is requesting six volunteers, as we’ve provided in the past, to log people in and to hand out juice and cookies after. We need to have the promotional posters printed and get the word out, and then a volunteer meeting will need to be organized by the end of the month. Patrick, you wanna take the lead on this?”

He looked up from his laptop. “On the blood drive?” His stomach twisted, and he considered saying no. “Uh… sure. Sure.” He typed that into the minutes, his fingers tapping sharply on the keys.

The rest of the meeting passed uneventfully, and they disbanded after another twenty minutes. Ronnie made her way over to Patrick as he was emailing the completed minutes out to the other members of council, a task he liked to do right away before he forgot about it. 

“You didn’t seem thrilled to be put in charge of the blood drive. If you’re squeamish around needles—”

“I’m not squeamish about giving blood.” He snapped his laptop closed and shoved it into his bag. “I earned a lapel pin in college for donating blood,” he muttered. 

“Oh. Then what’s the problem?”

“There’s no problem. I said I’d do it.” He stood up and shouldered his bag. “Be in charge of it, I mean. I won’t be donating blood because I’m not allowed.”

Ronnie’s eyes turned sympathetic. “Right.” She sighed. “The blood donation rules about gay men are outdated and discriminatory; you don’t have to tell me.”

Patrick shrugged. “It is what it is. I really don’t mind being in charge of the blood drive.” He did, a little, but not enough to make a fuss about it. If this was the only way he could contribute now that he fell into the ‘men who have sex with men’ category, then so be it.

When he was halfway to the door, she called out, making him stop in his tracks. “If our community always just said ‘it is what it is,’ then we wouldn’t have made the progress we’ve made. You wouldn’t have been able to stand in this room and marry the person you love. If it’s wrong, then we fight.”

Patrick turned and looked at her. “I kind of missed the activism part of the queer experience,” he admitted. “Although, I used to buy cupcakes from the GSA bake sale in high school.”

Ronnie rolled her eyes, heading out the door and leaving Patrick to follow her. “You are truly a pillar of the queer community,” she drawled, but there wasn’t any heat in it. She even patted his shoulder and said “see you around” as they parted ways.

Still, he felt unsettled as he walked back to the store. The extent of the time that he’d been aware of his sexuality, he’d mostly spent in a homophobia-free bubble. The people of Schitt’s Creek accepted him, his family (with a couple of notable exceptions whom he no longer spoke to) accepted him. He wasn’t used to being confronted with discrimination, and so even this relatively minor thing in his life, that he couldn’t donate blood — as anonymous and bureaucratic as it was, it was still painful. 

The rest of the afternoon did little to lift his mood, and he dragged through the motions of closing up the store with Bethany, then drove home alone. He didn’t want to text David in case he was driving, so when he got home he checked the location of David’s phone and saw that he was still at least two hours away, assuming he was even on his way yet. With a heavy sigh, Patrick let himself into their quiet house.

It was almost nine o’clock when David finally arrived, the familiar sound of him knocking snow off his boots rousing Patrick’s attention from his phone. He flipped off the television, the hockey game he wasn’t really paying attention to disappearing into blackness, and turned toward the door as it opened and David came in with a swirl of snowflakes.

“It’s starting to really come down out there,” David said breathlessly, unlooping his scarf from around his neck and hanging it on the coat rack by the front door. “I’m glad I wasn’t running any later.”

“Me too. It’s supposed to be ten centimeters by morning.” Patrick leaned up and kissed David’s cheek, cold against his lips. 

David grimaced. “Just enough to be annoying, but not enough to close the store for the day.” He braced himself on the wall and lifted first one foot and then the other to pull off his boots. 

“Yeah.” Their front door tended to stick, not quite latching, so Patrick leaned over and gave it a little push, listening for the click of the latch before he locked it. “Did you eat?”

“I grabbed a burger on the road.” His winter coat off, David pulled Patrick into a hug, his long arms moving into their usual place over Patrick’s shoulders and wrapping around him. “Aren’t you going to ask me how it went?”

“How did it go?”

“I got the clover honey contract.”

Patrick grinned. “I knew you would. And the others?”

“The woman who crochets those little animals is still mulling it over. She might be a no. Belinda Jensen signed on to provide the larger supply of soap we asked for. A couple of others — I left all the paperwork in the car.” He kissed Patrick quickly on the lips. “How was your day?”

Patrick struggled to remember through the fog in his brain what he’d done all day — work and his council meeting and the leftovers he’d reheated for dinner and the hockey game he hadn’t been watching. “Uneventful,” he finally replied.

He felt a surge of irrational anger that David had such a wildly productive day, a day that materially benefited their business, while Patrick had… treaded water. He pushed the anger away — he had no reason to be angry with David. He should be proud of David, of the way he continued to work to make their business thrive, of how good he was with the vendors.

The remainder of the evening was quiet, David on the sofa intermittently reading and texting with Alexis while Patrick made a grocery list, and then another list of tasks he wanted to accomplish over the weekend. It only served to remind him of all things he’d meant to do this winter that he hadn’t gotten around to yet. He just kept getting paralyzed lately; going over and over all the things he needed to do in his mind, but not actually starting any of them.

“I’m ready for spring,” he muttered to himself.

David looked up from his phone. “What are you talking about, you love winter! Winter has hockey, which you love.”

“Yeah.” Patrick sighed. “I’m not really feeling it this year. I’m exhausted.” 

Reaching over to rub his shoulder, David gave him a look full of sympathy. “Anything I can do?”

Patrick shook his head and stood up. There wasn’t really anything wrong, so what could David do? “I’m gonna get ready for bed.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you up there in a minute,” David said, distracted by another text from Alexis that made him smile down at his phone.

Patrick had dozed off into a light sleep by the time David crawled into bed next to him, but the dip of the mattress woke him. He rolled over toward his husband, lips against the stubble of David’s jaw, inhaling the scent of his moisturizer. “Missed you today,” he murmured sleepily.

“Missed you too.” David turned his head, brushing his lips against Patrick’s. “Mm, you’re warm.” He wriggled his body, snuggling closer.

Patrick pressed another kiss against David’s mouth, and then another, with softer lips — a little bit longer, a little bit slower. 

“Thought you were sleeping,” David said, his voice syrupy and mellow.

“I’m kissing you goodnight,” Patrick said. Another kiss — longer still, slower still.

“That’s how it starts,” David said with a smile, his hand burrowing down and finding the jut of Patrick’s hipbone.

He had a point. There were times when they went to bed with no particular intention to have sex, but the simple press of their mouths together would ignite a fire between them. Patrick wondered if that tendency would ever fade. He hoped not. Especially lately, the physical intimacy he shared with David was one of the only things that made him feel good. It was the only time that he didn’t feel like everything was sort of disappointing and foggy, when he could ignore all of life’s recent shortcomings and annoyances. He could turn off those thoughts and feel the pleasure that David was an expert in drawing out of him.

“Do you wanna have sex?” Patrick asked.

David gave him a crooked smile. “I thought I was too tired, but I might be coming around to the idea.”

Patrick scratched his blunt nails across the back of David’s neck, humming into his mouth as their kisses got deeper and messier. His heartbeat accelerating, that good, fizzy feeling suffusing his body, Patrick shifted closer, enjoying the sensation of their bodies together through their pajamas.

Long before they were married, they established a pattern where Patrick was more often than not the one to take charge in bed, but tonight he wanted it to be David. He felt like he needed to be taken, and used, and _useful_. 

“Can you…” he started to ask, then paused as he tried to figure out how to put what he needed into words. He still struggled with the vulnerability of that, sometimes. Of asking for what he needed. He found it much easier to let David ask for things.

“Tell me what you need, honey,” David whispered as they pulled off their clothes. 

_Make me forget that I’ve been feeling so shitty_ , Patrick thought. _Show me you still need me._

“Can you hold me down and… fuck my thighs?” Patrick asked instead. The sex act was easier to talk about than the feelings that were underneath it.

“Mm hmm, I can do that,” David said. In the dark, Patrick couldn’t make out David’s facial expression, didn’t know if David was reading any of his churning thoughts. Couldn’t tell if David thought it was odd that Patrick was asking for him to be the dominant one. Not that he’d never been submissive in bed, he had, but he’d done it because it was something David was in the mood for. He’d almost never asked for it.

“Turn over,” David said, the liquid tone of his voice making Patrick shiver as he followed the direction. 

Patrick reached over for the lube from the bedside table, handing it back to David before he positioned his back against David’s chest. David didn’t do anything with it right away, though, his mouth wet and sure against Patrick’s shoulder, hand running up and down his hip and thigh over and over, then coming around to gently scrape his fingernails across Patrick’s balls before taking his dick in a loose fist, stroking with a teasing lack of pressure. Patrick moaned, pushing back against David’s erection. He almost changed his mind and asked David to fuck his ass instead — having David inside him really would get him out of his head; it always did. But both of them were tired and the preparation would take awhile, and his original instinct was fine. He didn’t say anything, tipping his head to give David more access to his neck.

After a few more minutes of foreplay, David finally grabbed the lube, getting the inside of Patrick’s thighs and his own cock slick before positioning himself. Patrick clenched his thighs together and David groaned at the friction, fingers clenching on Patick’s hip briefly before his hand moved around and took hold of Patrick’s cock again, matching the rhythm of his hips to the rhythm of his stroking. He wasn’t trying to draw things out now; he was working Patrick’s cock to get him off quickly, and the sensation of it, the way it demonstrated how perfectly David knew him, knew his body, allowed Patrick to stop thinking and sink into the pleasure. He had just enough presence of mind to cup his own palm over himself before spilling over David’s fist, coming with a gasp and a bitten off moan. 

David let him pause long enough to grab one of the little towels they kept a stack of on the bedside table to clean himself up, to keep the sheets unscathed, before pushing Patrick down onto his stomach and fucking more vigorously, his cock sliding between Patrick’s thighs and against his balls. Patrick closed his eyes tight and gripped his pillow and let David take him, let him fuck against him, his weight bearing down on Patrick’s back, his pelvis slapping against Patrick’s ass. 

“Fuck,” David whispered, and then he lifted up, pulling away from Patrick’s body. “I need to…” he said, and then Patrick heard the slick noise of David jacking himself, and then very quickly the warmth and wetness of David coming on his lower back. 

“Sorry for the unnegotiated cumshot,” David said as soon as he caught his breath enough to speak. 

Patrick held the towel he was still clutching up for David to take, laughing. “You’re good,” he said as David cleaned him up. “I only need warning if it’s gonna be on my face,” he continued as he flipped over, taking the towel from David and tossing it toward the laundry hamper. While David went to the bathroom to wash his hands and then pulled his pajamas back on, Patrick considered doing the same, but then David was curling around him under their heavy duvet and Patrick couldn’t bring himself to move. He closed his eyes and let the drowsiness from his orgasm pull him under.

~*~

His alarm went off early, and it took Patrick a few seconds to remember why he’d set it so early: the snow. 

Mournfully extracting himself from the warmth of bed, Patrick pulled on yesterday’s jeans and a hoodie, then made his way downstairs to don all of his winter gear. Opening the front door, he took a second to admire the pure, untouched snow that blanketed the world before he perturbed it with his boot prints. 

Everything seemed preternaturally quiet, the snow dampening what little noise there was. Patrick thought there would have been a time when he would have loved this quiet, would have loved being alone with his thoughts while he did some meditative manual labor. This morning, he shied away from the contents of his own brain, electing to put his earbuds in and to listen to a podcast instead. Patrick fell into a rhythm of snow shoveling in the winter pre-dawn light — push, lift, throw, repeat — so he didn’t notice David until he was almost down to the end of the driveway where Patrick was working. 

“David!” Patrick pulled one of his earbuds out, letting it hang. The cold had made the wire stiff, the angle of it unnatural. “I didn’t think you’d be awake yet.”

David had jammed his feet into snow boots, the joggers he’d worn to bed bunching up around his calves. A hat was jammed down on his head, covering his ears, and he shivered as he struggled to zip his coat with gloved fingers. “You not being in bed wakes me up sometimes. And I felt bad that you were out here by yourself.”

“You don’t need to feel bad — you’re covering the store today.” They each had a day each week when they worked the store with Bethany while the other had the day off, and today was David’s day to work. “The least I can do is dig your car out for you.”

David huffed. “Let me help.”

Patrick tilted his head to the side, regarding his husband thoughtfully. “Okay, David. There’s another shovel in the shed.”

David tromped away as directed, and a minute later he was shoveling in a parallel track to where Patrick had been working. It wasn’t something that Patrick could have pictured David Rose doing a few years ago, but David had seemed determined to meet the challenge of homeownership in a lot of ways that Patrick couldn’t have pictured before they were married. 

When they finished and went back inside, David groaned as he bent over to pull his boots off. “Ugh, my back,” he whined.

Patrick tried to put a hand on David’s lower back, but his puffy winter coat prevented any contact. “Go take a shower and I’ll make your coffee,” he said. 

Patrick put on water to heat up, rubbing his hands together to warm himself, and began getting things set up for breakfast: he ground coffee beans for David’s French press and got out tea for himself and eggs for both of them. He moved automatically through the morning routine, ingrained habits from their year and a half of marriage and from all the mornings before that, when David spent the night at Patrick’s apartment. 

After making David breakfast and seeing him out the door with a reminder to drive carefully, Patrick curled up on the sofa with his phone. He had a list of chores he wanted to tackle, and he had a book he wanted to read, but he spent over an hour switching between social media apps, dipping into the first few paragraphs of news articles before dipping back out, not focusing on any one thing for more than a few minutes. He opened a couple of game apps, but closed them again just as quickly without doing anything. These days he’d been mostly avoiding Facebook — he knew the ethical thing to do these days was to delete your Facebook account, but he was afraid of losing touch with all the people he didn’t communicate with any other way. He opened the app now, scrolling through the posts on his feed, most of them family members and friends from high school and college.

He paused briefly on a candid picture on his cousin Sara’s page of her son Justin. _“Justin’s last performance in Newsies was last night!!! Great job to all!!!!”_ Wrinkling his nose at all the exclamation points, he took a good look at his cousin’s kid. They weren’t at the wedding, but he had seen Justin very briefly at the engagement barbecue his parents had thrown for him and David. He’d been a gawky fifteen-year-old at the time, quiet, ghosting along beside his parents with the disdain for attending a family function that only a teenager was capable of. The boy in the picture was older, and something about the way he looked in the picture, his arms slung over the shoulders of a couple of his castmates, made Patrick smile. _Congrats to Justin!_ , he typed into the comments. 

Finally, he dragged himself upstairs to shower and get dressed in some clean clothes, regretting that he’d already squandered part of his day off. He could have gone into the store with David if the alternative was this, a day at home feeling adrift and empty.

A hot shower helped, and afterward Patrick started a load of laundry, settling onto the sofa with a basket of towels from the dryer to fold. He unlocked his phone and started one of his history podcasts playing. Most of the rest of the day passed by as Patrick did the bare minimum of household chores, interrupted by long stretches of lost time when he was doing nothing in particular. 

Stevie stopped by at a little past five o’clock, flopping down at the kitchen table while Patrick looked in the fridge and tried to decide what he was going to make for dinner. 

“Do you want to hear something hilarious?” Stevie asked as Patrick took a packet of chicken breasts out and checked the date. They were still good, and he figured they would do for dinner. A serviceable, boring dinner — the Patrick Brewer of dinners, he thought uncharitably. He also took out some mushrooms, and grabbed an onion from the bowl on the counter. 

“Sure,” he answered.

“I saw Gwen yesterday.”

“Bob’s Gwen?” He pulled a chef’s knife from the block and sliced the onion in half.

“Okay, she hasn’t been Bob’s Gwen for a few years.”

Patrick huffed. “No, I know, I was just asking if that’s who you meant. Because she moved to Elm… somewhere. Elm Valley?”

“She moved to Elm Ridge, actually, but she was in town for some reason, and I saw her.”

He squinted at Stevie. “And?”

“And she asked how it was working out among the three of us, and it was clear she meant… like, she thought we’re a throuple.”

Patrick laughed. “We do spend a lot of time together, you, me, and David.”

“I know, but you’re gay.”

“Sure, but I can’t say I’ve ever explained the particulars of my sexual orientation to Gwen. Maybe she assumes I’m pansexual like David.” He blinked up at her. “Are you worried that people will think you’re off the market?”

Stevie shrugged. “The kinds of people I tend to hook up with wouldn’t care.”

“Fair enough.” Patrick felt the old impulse to reassure Stevie that she’d find the right person eventually, and he had to remind himself that he needed to take her at her word, that romance and love weren’t necessarily what she was looking for. 

“Are you okay?” she asked with narrowed eyes, watching him carefully as he put dinner together.

“I’m just tired. Had kind of a shitty day.” He couldn’t articulate what made it shitty, though. It was the vague ennui that had been plaguing him lately, the pregnant rain clouds in his brain that were casting a shadow over everything, washing the colour out. “ You staying for dinner?”

“Yeah, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s always fine, Stevie. You know that.”

“Thanks.” She walked over and grabbed a beer out of the fridge, opening it with the magnetic bottle opener that Patrick kept on the door. 

“Maybe I just haven’t been getting enough sunshine lately,” Patrick said.

“Do we need to get you one of those light therapy things?” Stevie asked, taking a swig of her beer.

Patrick chuckled. “I don’t know, maybe.” He bit his lip, unsure if he should share more. “It kind of reminds me of the way I used to feel before I ran away and moved here. But back then, I had a good reason to be sad. I’ve got no reason to be sad now.”

“Depression doesn’t have to have a reason. I mean, it doesn’t have to be because you’re… engaged to the wrong person, for example.”

He knew that, intellectually. But he wasn’t sure he really believed it, deep down. “I guess.” He didn’t want to talk about it anymore. “When’s your next trip?” he asked to divert the conversation onto another track.

Patrick cooked and the two of them gossiped for a bit longer until David got home from the store, planting a kiss on Patrick’s lips when he joined them in the kitchen. The easy banter among the three of them over dinner quelled some of Patrick’s unhappiness, and he found himself laughing through the familiar see-saw of their interactions, as they cycled through every combination of two-against-one. They finally settled on the sofa, David putting on the episode of _Derry Girls_ that they had left off with the last time Stevie was over. Stevie sat between them, leaning against Patrick’s shoulder with her socked feet up on David’s lap.

“Can’t imagine why people think we’re a throuple,” Patrick said, lifting his shoulder and adjusting to a more comfortable position before gesturing for her to lean on him again.

Stevie snorted. “In your dreams, Brewer.”

“Nope.” Then he thought about it. “Well, there was that one time during _Cabaret_ , but I’m not responsible for who turns up in my sex dreams.”

David turned and eyed him. “Who turned up in your sex dreams?”

“Me, apparently,” Stevie said as she poked David in the leg with her toe.

“Ew,” David said.

“Ted, a few times,” Patrick said, which got him an eye roll from his husband.

“I assume you mean the turtle,” David said, looking back at the television.

“Yeah, I’m so hot for turtles.”

Stevie started flipping through a dating app on her phone, her attention only half on the show they were watching.

“What do you think of this one?” she said, holding up the phone so that Patrick could see the blandly handsome shirtless guy on the screen.

“Meh.” 

“He’s got nice arms,” Stevie said.

“He looks like an asshole.”

“Doesn’t mean he won’t be a good fuck.”

He supposed not, and it didn’t seem like Stevie really wanted his opinion anyway, even though she’d asked for it. He watched as she swiped right on Mr. Shirtless.

Patrick dozed off after a little while, existing in that place between wakefulness and sleep where he was still convinced he was following the story of the show they were watching even though his eyes were closed. He was distantly aware of the warmth of Stevie pressed up against his side and the smell of her hair, and of the safety of being with the two people who knew him best in the world.


	2. Spring

Stevie squinted at the piece of paper Patrick handed her. “This is a lot of instructions just to water some plants.”

“If you over-water some of them, it could kill them. This tells you how to know if they need water and how much water to give them,” he explained.

She sighed, putting the paper aside. “Okay. Do you care if I hang out here and watch your TV?”

“I expected you would.”

“And eat your food?”

Patrick leveled a stare at her. “Yes, please enjoy the boxes of pasta and cans of beans in our pantry.” A distant memory occurred to him. “And I’ve marked the booze so I’ll know if you touch it.”

Stevie stuck her tongue out at him. “Anything else you need me to do?”

“Bethany has your number in case she needs help at the store, but I think she’ll be fine. It’s only for a few days.”

“The Brewers are certainly getting to see a lot of you. They were just here for Christmas three months ago.” Stevie said, collapsing backward over the arm of the sofa. “Now this Easter weekend trip.”

“Yeah.” Patrick shoved his hands in his pockets and shrugged. “I still have to make up for a lot of lost time with them. I wasn’t… I wasn’t a good son for a while.”

Stevie eyed him, her legs swinging. “I’m sure your parents don’t see it as a debt that you have to repay. And you had a lot to figure out about yourself back then. It’s not your fault.”

“I know.” Patrick said automatically, not believing it. He walked over and sat next to where her head was resting, taking care not to sit on her hair. “It’s just… I denied them the chance to get to know David much before we were married. So I’m trying to give them the opportunity to spend time with him now. It’s important to me that they see him the way I do. That they understand why I married him.”

“What sign have your parents ever given you that they don’t understand why you married him?” Stevie said, tilting her head back until she could meet his eyes.

“None, really.” Patrick sighed. “I guess I still feel like I need to… reassure them that I’m good. That I’m happy.”

“You want to perform your queer relationship in front of them,” Stevie concluded.

“I mean, kind of? Is that stupid?”

“Only in the sense that I don’t think you need to prove anything to them. But if it makes you feel better, there’s probably no harm in it.” She was still looking at him, her dark eyes hard to read. “Are you still feeling down? Sad?”

Patrick squirmed, regretting that he’d given Stevie that view into his psyche. “No. I don’t… not really. I don’t think so.”

Stevie swung up into a sitting position, her feet dropping to the floor. “You don’t _think_ so?”

“I’m feeling better. But I also feel like I’m detached from… I don’t know how to word it. Like I locked my feelings in a box that I’ve lost the key to. I’m fine, but also I’m… numb is the wrong word, but it’s also not entirely the wrong word.” He frowned in frustration, unsure if any of the things he was telling Stevie were true. He was feeling better. He’d told himself there was no reason to feel sad enough times, and maybe his brain had finally gotten the message. 

She patted him on the knee. “Have you talked to David about it?”

The way he looked quickly at her and then looked away answered that question. 

“You should talk to David.”

“I don’t need to burden David with this. Like I said, I’m feeling better.” He stood up, anxious to escape this conversation.

Stevie didn’t say anything to that, and Patrick’s shoulders dropped in relief that she wasn’t going to push it. At the same time, some part of him recognized that maybe he needed her to push it. He didn’t want it, but he needed it. 

“Okay, well, have a good trip,” Stevie said.

~*~

Patrick shook David by the shoulder. “It’s time to get up, David.”

David whined. “‘S too early.”

“We need to get on the road to my parents’.” Patrick got out of bed. “I’ll take the first shower but then you have to get up.”

David burrowed back down into the covers in response. 

The entire morning, David was grouchy and resentful for having been woken _‘before the sun was even up, Patrick!’_ and he brought his resentment with him into the car, grousing about the fact that the snack bag (which Patrick had taken care to pack with all of David’s favorite road trip foods) was taking up valuable legroom. He also complained that the car was too cold, then too hot, then too humid. When David started in on how bad Patrick’s car speakers were, Patrick hit his limit.

“Should I have left you at home, David?” he shouted, gripping the steering wheel. “Gone to visit my parents alone?”

David reared back against the passenger door. “No.” 

“Then can you give it a rest?”

“Sorry,” David muttered, not really sounding sorry. “It messes up my equilibrium when I have to get up early, you know that.”

“We had to get up that early if we were going to be at my parents’ house by four in the afternoon, David. I explained that.”

David’s mouth twisted. “Okay,” he said after a couple of seconds of silence.

Patrick stole a couple of glances at his husband. He could tell when David’s _‘okay’_ really meant, _you’re wrong but I refuse to fight with you about it_. “What?” Patrick finally burst out with.

“It’s just, it’s not like your parents needed us there by four. They specifically said we could arrive any time. This is you doing that thing where you get locked into a part of your plan for no reason, and then everything else that follows has to fit into that plan.”

“Oh, are we having this argument again? The one about me being inflexible?” Patrick grumbled.

“I guess we are.”

Patrick drove in silence for a few minutes, aware of David studying his fingernails in his periphery. Finally, David slapped his hands down on his thighs. “It’s past time for me to take over driving, isn’t it?”

“Are you sure you aren’t too _tired_?”

“Mmm, if I doze off at the wheel, you have my permission to yell at me some more,” David said.

“David—”

“I’m joking. I’m fine to drive, and I’m sure you need a break.”

Patrick made a point of relaxing his shoulders, letting them drop. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll pull off at the next exit.”

It was a long time after they switched, after an interminable length of tense silence in the car, that Patrick finally tried to offer a small peace offering. “My mom once told me that all the arguments she and my dad have ever had boil down to the one way they are incompatible. And that fortunately they eventually remember all the many ways they are compatible.”

“How are they incompatible?” David asked.

“I don’t actually remember. Maybe she didn’t tell me. They never fought in front of me that I can remember. I guess they’d bottle it up until they were alone.”

David snorted. “That explains some things about you.” 

Patrick inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. “Are we still fighting?”

“A little bit,” David said.

“We’re fighting ‘a little bit’?” Patrick asked, almost laughing even though he could still feel lingering resentment in his bloodstream.

“Yeah. A tiny bit.”

“I’m sorry for yelling.”

“I’m sorry for being a brat,” David said.

“I’m sorry that I insisted on such an early start.”

David reached over and patted his knee. “You don’t have to apologize for that. I need to remember that it makes you less anxious to get an early start.”

“Maybe the next time we have this fight about my inflexibility, you’ll remember that,” Patrick said, sneaking a smile at David.

“Mmm, but you’re inflexible about so many things, honey.”

Patrick’s expression morphed into a glare.

“And I’m bratty about so many things,” David conceded, reaching over again and this time taking Patrick’s hand. And then they weren’t even fighting a little bit. Patrick turned on some music and they sang along most of the rest of the way to the Brewers’ house.

As soon as Patrick had turned off the car in his parent’s driveway, his mother appeared from the front door like she’d been watching for them from the window. He glanced at David with a smile. “She’s missed her favorite son-in-law,” Patrick said, unbuckling his seat belt.

David slapped him gently on the arm. “I’m just window dressing and you know it.”

“Hardly,” Patrick said, getting out of the car to be immediately enveloped in a hug by his mother, then his father. He moved to unload the trunk while David hugged his parents too. An image struck him suddenly, himself in those early days of realizing that he had feelings for David, witnessing this. If he could have known that this was in his future, he could have dispensed with so much of the anxiety that defined the time before he was out to his family. David Rose greeting his parents and chatting easily with them as they moved to help unload the car, a part of his family. A ring on his finger that matched the one on Patrick’s. Sometimes it still felt like a miracle.

Patrick was moving toward the stairs to carry their bags upstairs when his father put a hand on his arm to stop him. “One little snag. We were supposed to have the new bed for the guest room delivered this week, but I got the notice that it had been delayed after your cousin Cheryl already hauled away the old one.”

“So there’s nowhere for us to sleep?” Patrick asked with raised eyebrows.

Clint gestured toward the sofa in the family room. “We’ll make up the sofa bed for you.”

Patrick met David’s eyes. “We can get a hotel room,” he said.

“No, don’t be silly, dear. The sofa bed is plenty comfortable,” Marcy protested. She’d always been the kind of person who considered family staying in a hotel to be a personal failing. The bed mix-up was probably torturing her.

David put a hand on her shoulder, clearly noticing her distress. “The sofa bed will be fine. It’s only three nights,” he said over her head to Patrick.

“You can still put your bags upstairs. Use that room as a changing room,” his dad said. 

“Okay,” Patrick said with a shrug.

When he got back downstairs, Marcy and David already had their heads bent over her Easter party to-do list at the kitchen table, David full of suggestions for how to organize the family gathering. Patrick left them to it with an affectionate squeeze on the back of David’s neck, then went over and flopped down on the sofa they were apparently going to be sleeping on later, where he could still keep an eye on the kitchen while resting his aching body after the long hours on the road.

By now, Patrick had come to expect the way visiting his childhood home stirred up a lot of complicated feelings in him. It was like he had come equipped with an antenna that could reach back in time and pick up the frequency of the unhappiness he carried around back then. Or like that unhappiness had infused everything in the house — the walls, the carpets, the drapes — like the cigarette smoke of a long-departed smoker. He liked to think that watching his husband and his parents grow closer was a balm to those old aches, but he wasn’t sure if it was true. 

“Did you end up making the butter tarts I sent you the recipe for?” Marcy asked David.

Patrick had let his eyes drift closed, but he imagined he could hear David’s cringing expression. “I did make them, but it wasn’t an unqualified success,” David said.

“They were good,” Patrick called, his eyes still closed. “You’re too much of a perfectionist.”

“Yes, hi. Hello, I’m David Rose, your husband,” David replied. “You should probably take my perfectionism as read at this point, honey.”

“I’m sure they were fine. And the next time you make them, they’ll be even better,” Marcy said.

“I have mastered chicken parmesan, though,” David said, and Patrick could hear the pride in his voice. David had made a few small attempts at cooking in Patrick’s apartment, but now that they had the house, his interest in cooking had really blossomed. 

“Well, I wouldn’t say no if you want to cook a meal one of the evenings that you boys are here,” Marcy said in a sweet, teasing voice.

“I can do that if you aren’t afraid to let me loose in your kitchen,” David responded, sounding pleased. Patrick grinned, loving how well his mother and husband got along. Another miracle that he couldn’t have imagined a few years ago.

After an evening of food and conversation and laughter with David and his parents, Patrick eventually found himself making the sofa bed with his mother while David was in the bathroom, probably only on step three of his nine-step skincare regimen by the time they had the sheets on and blankets carefully tucked in at the bottom.

“I’m sorry again about the bed,” his mother said. “I told Clint—”

“Mom, it’s fine,” he said, not really feeling like it was fine, exactly. It was weird, the idea of getting into bed with David in such a public part of the house, where his parents would see them if they came downstairs during the night. And that made him wonder if he’d think it was weird if he were straight and married to a woman, and _that_ made him wonder how much internalized homophobia he was still carrying around.

“Well, thank you for not going to a hotel. I like having you and David here, under our roof.”

A warmth suffused his chest at that. “Thanks, Mom.”

She smirked at him. “But I guess you’ll have to keep things PG, sleeping out here.”

“Mom!” He felt a blush steal over his face. “We weren’t going to be… doing anything not PG in your house.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Hasn’t stopped you before.”

“Oh my god—”

“I’m sorry, sweetie. The walls are kind of thin…”

Patrick buried his face in his hands, remembering a couple of times when they hadn’t been able to keep their hands off of each other here, particularly the first time they visited after they’d gotten married. “This is so embarrassing.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” his mother said. “I was glad you were happy.”

“Uh huh.” He raised his head and bravely met her eyes. “Well, we certainly won’t be getting… happy… out here. Also, please don’t tell David that you heard us.”

She laughed. “Okay, I won’t.”

When David joined him under the covers later, Patrick had managed to stop blushing and was thinking again about the fight they’d had that morning, even though it was far in the rear view mirror, both literally and metaphorically. Patrick considered bringing it up again — they hadn’t really resolved anything, and he felt the urge to apologize again. But maybe there was nothing to resolve. It was an incontrovertible fact that he and David were very different in a lot of ways, and there were contrasting aspects of their personalities that were going to scrape against each other sometimes. So instead of trying to relitigate their fight, Patrick exhaled a deep sigh and pulled David close, hugging him. 

“I love you,” Patrick said. 

“Love you too,” David whispered, hot breath against his neck.

“And I love seeing you here. In this house with my parents. It means so much to me, getting to be here with you.”

“I know.” David rubbed his back with soothing pressure. “I know.”

~*~

Patrick awoke to soft murmur of voices nearby, and to the scent of David’s shampoo. He slowly became aware of his surroundings, of the way David was curled toward him, his head tucked up under Patrick’s chin and an arm slung over his waist on top of the blankets. David had always been a cuddler, at least for as long as Patrick had been sharing a bed with him, and this morning was no different from a hundred other mornings when Patrick had awoken to David clinging to him like a barnacle, making him overheated and sweaty.

Extracting himself, Patrick sat up and rubbed his face. His parents were in the kitchen, only the stove light on in an attempt, he supposed, to keep from waking them. He looked back at his husband, still sound asleep. Well, it worked for one of them, at least.

He shuffled into the kitchen. “Hey.”

“Morning, son,” his dad whispered. “The water in the kettle is still hot.”

“Thanks,” Patrick said, getting a mug down from the cupboard. “You don’t have to whisper. David’s a heavy sleeper.”

“I hope the sofa wasn’t too uncomfortable,” Clint said.

Stretching out his spine, Patrick assessed whether he was feeling any negative after-effects from sleeping on a pull-out sofa. “No, it was fine.”

He looked over at his mother to see her beaming at him. 

“What?” Patrick asked as he put a tea bag into his mug.

“Nothing, you just looked very cute snuggled up with your husband.”

Patrick felt his cheeks heat up. “Okay.” This was exactly what had made him anxious, the idea of his parents seeing him and David in an intimate, albeit innocent, moment. He tried to forget that they’d apparently overheard some less innocent moments in the past and focused on making his tea. Still, he couldn’t help the smile that crept over his face at the fact that his mother could look at him in bed with David and call it ‘cute.’ Another miracle to add to the pile since the day he drove past the Schitt’s Creek town sign for the first time.

~*~

Patrick was pulling another tray of mini biscuits out of the oven when his cousin Sara approached him in the midst of the Easter party on Sunday afternoon. She was his father’s older brother’s eldest child, so despite being a first cousin, she was almost fifteen years older than him. They’d been friendly since Patrick had become an adult, but they’d never been particularly close.

“Hey, do you have a minute to talk?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at the closest gaggle of relatives, clustered around the television in the next room. Miraculously, they had the kitchen to themselves for the moment.

“If you can help me put ham on these, sure,” he said. “I’m told the first batch disappeared in record time.”

She chuckled. “I can do that.”

“Is Justin here?” he asked, trying to remember if he’d seen the teenager around the house. “I didn’t see him.”

Sara winced. “He might have holed up in a quiet part of the house so that he didn’t have to be social.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Justin is… he came out to us this year.” Patrick looked up at her, but she was focused intently on the task of cutting the biscuits in half and piling them with sliced ham. 

Patrick thought about the kid he’d known a few years ago, before he moved to Schitt’s Creek, quiet and serious even as a young boy. “Came out as… what? How does he identify?”

“Oh. Gay. He’s gay.”

“Okay.” Patrick wasn’t sure what to say. The reason she was telling him was obvious, but he wasn’t sure if he was expected to impart some mystical gay secrets on her. Bless her family with a gay benediction. “Is he only out to you and Mark, or is he out at school?”

“He’s out at school. I think it’s been… I mean, not as rough as it was for my generation by a long shot, but I don’t think it’s been easy. He has good friends who support him, though.” 

“That’s good.” Now it was Patrick’s turn to avert his eyes. “I don’t really have any advice about that — I wasn’t even out to myself in high school, much less to anyone else — but David might. Although, admittedly, his high school experience was…” He thought about models in bras and thongs and of salad bowls full of pills. “…unusual.”

“Anyway, I was thinking, maybe it would be good if he had an adult to go to for advice who isn’t me or his dad.”

Patrick tried to put himself in Justin’s shoes. If he’d been out in high school, would he have been willing to go to an older cousin who was also gay for advice? One that he wasn’t all that close to? He doubted it.

“I haven’t really talked much to Justin in the last few years, though. I don’t know if he would trust me as a confidante.” Patrick said. 

“Maybe not, but can we try?” Sara had finished assembling the ham biscuits, and she went over to the sink to wash her hands. “I’m doing my best with the whole talking-about-sex thing, but no one wants to hear that stuff from their mother. And I don’t want him relying on his friends for that. Or learning about it from porn.”

Patrick’s eyes widened. He’d thought that one of the advantages of not having any kids of his own was going to be that he’d never have to have an awkward sex talk with a teenager. “I don’t think he’s gonna want to hear it from me either. As far as porn goes, he’s probably going to look at it regardless, or already is, so you should talk to him about that, that it’s not realistic—”

“I know. I have. But still—”

“I can send you some book recommendations, though. Or links to actual reliable stuff on the internet. Things that you can pass on to him that he can read on his own.”

She was visibly disappointed by that answer. “Okay. Thanks.”

He sighed. “And I can talk to him today,” he conceded. “And give him my number if he wants to text.”

Her shoulders dropped in relief, and she hugged him. “Thank you. I want him to have someone to talk to who… maybe knows what he’s going through. Or what he might face.”

Patrick picked up the serving platter of biscuits, still uncomfortable with the responsibility he was being shouldered with, but resigned to it. “I mean, I married the first guy I dated, so my experience is not… broad? But I’ll do my best.”

Sara bulldozed ahead, unphased by that admission. “And you can keep his confidence unless you think his safety is at risk. I don’t expect you to report back to me on… whatever he talks to you about.”

The weight of responsibility got measurably heavier. “Okay.”

He took the platter back out to the dining room, where a literal smorgasbord of foods were arrayed for people to help themselves to. David was standing next to the potato salad, putting some only his already full plate. “Hey,” Patrick said.

David smiled at him. “There you are. I have now learned a very interesting and disgusting story about you from Dennis involving a two liter bottle of Coke and a drive to Winnipeg.”

Patrick groaned. “Dennis needs to learn to keep his mouth shut.” He picked up a paper plate, planning to help himself to some food of his own. “I, meanwhile, was just asked to counsel a…” He glanced around and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Gay teenager.”

David raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

Patrick indicated the back door with his chin, and he followed David out onto the deck once his plate was loaded up. They walked over to stand at the corner of the house away from the crowd in the backyard. “My cousin Sara’s seventeen-year-old son came out as gay to his family, and Sara wants me to be his… queer role model, I guess. Or maybe talk to him about sex? I’m not entirely clear.”

“That’s adorable,” David said. “And horrifying.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, good luck with that,” David said, making his way over to one of the tables they’d set up in the yard that morning.

“That’s all I get from you?” Patrick whined, following him. “‘Good luck with that’?”

David sat down at the table between Marcy and another of Patrick’s cousins, giving his husband a simpering smile. “I’m sure you’ll do great, honey.”

Patrick rolled his eyes, finding a seat on the other side of the table. “Thanks,” he muttered.

After lunch, Patrick went looking for Justin, finally tracking him down in his parent’s office, curled up in the desk chair and reading on his phone. Patrick waved, and Justin pulled some earbuds out of his ears.

“Hey,” Justin said, looking wary.

“Hey.” Patrick rocked on his heels, his hands shoved deep in his pockets. “Please tell me your mom mentioned to you that she was gonna talk to me.”

Justin sighed heavily. “No offense, but I was hoping she wouldn’t. Not that I care if you know I’m gay, just…”

“You don’t need a cousin that you haven’t talked to in a while trying to it-gets-better you at a family party?”

Justin laughed. “Yeah.”

“I get it. I probably wouldn’t want that either, if I were you.” Patrick shrugged. “We don’t have to talk right now. Or ever, if you don’t need to. But… maybe if something comes up in the future that you have questions about, you can text me? It might be… comforting, actually, that we aren’t close. That you don’t have to look at me across the dinner table like you do your parents. Easier to ask me embarrassing or personal questions that way. With that distance.”

Patrick could see the moment the idea really fully registered in Justin’s mind, his eyes widening a little bit. Then his mask of teenage apathy slipped back into place. “Okay. Give me your phone,” he said, holding out his hand. 

Pulling his phone from his pocket and unlocking it, Patrick handed it over, then watched as Justin entered his number and then texted himself from Patrick’s phone. 

“I mean,” he said, handing the phone back, “you’ll still tell my mom whatever I say.”

It was a test, but fortunately Sara had already given Patrick the answer key. “Only if you’re unsafe. Other than that, I won’t tell her what you talk to me about.”

Justin shrugged like he didn’t care, but Patrick suspected that maybe he did care a little bit. Patrick put his hands back in his pockets. “Is there anything you want to… Right now, is there—”

“Nope,” Justin said, his cheeks reddening. “But thanks for your number.”

“Yeah. Of course.” Again, Patrick fretted that there were some wise words, some summation of the gay experience he should be able to speak aloud. His mind was blank. “So… I’ll just…” He pointed back toward the door with his thumb. “See you around?”

“Uh huh,” Justin said, looking back at his phone. 

“Okay. Well, okay,” Patrick said, leaving him to it.

Later, David asked him how it went, and in answer, Patrick showed him his cousin’s contact in his phone, which Justin had added with a little rainbow emoji next to the name. “Cuuute,” David said in that slightly patronizing way he had. 

Patrick shrugged. “I doubt he’ll ever text me, but he’s got the option.”

~*~

He was still thinking about Justin a few days later when they were back home, still wondering if he would be able to live up to whatever Sara expected him to do. So when he arrived a few minutes early for a council meeting to find only Ronnie at her desk in town hall, he told her the story. If she thought he wasn’t up to the job of advising a queer kid, she wouldn’t pull her punches.

“I’m not sure if I should do anything now, or if him having my number is enough.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Does it feel like enough?”

“I don’t know, Ronnie!” he said, throwing up his hands. “No, it doesn’t, but I also don’t really see myself texting him and asking if he’s being safe and using condoms, or… or whatever my cousin Sara is envisioning.”

“Well yeah, not at this point, not unless you want to come off as a creep.”

“Exactly.”

“But there’s more to this kid’s life than his sexual orientation, just like there’s more to your life than yours. And you said you didn’t know him that well. So why not try to get to know him better. Let him get to know you better. That way if he ever does need your help — which, I agree, he could do better than you — then he won’t be afraid to ask for it.”

Patrick ignored the dig, because there was actually some good advice in there. “That’s smart.”

“Well, you don’t have to sound surprised, Patrick,” Ronnie said with narrowed eyes.

“I didn’t! You’re smarter than all of us, Ronnie.”

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Now you’re patronizing me.”

“What I’m doing is being reminded that I can’t win with you, that’s what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Then as Roland and Bob came in, she added, “Good luck with it.”


	3. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've linked to relevant pages of the Whitney Museum of American Art website within the text of this chapter to paintings being discussed by the characters.

Wherever Patrick Brewer might have expected his the trajectory of his life to lead, even after he’d broken it off with Rachel and left his hometown, even after he realized he was gay and fell in love with a man, he could never have imagined a future that included walking down a sunny sidewalk in SoHo on an August afternoon with a woman like Moira Rose on his arm.

This trip to New York City had been in the works for months, planned for the break between the filming of _Crows IV_ and the date when Moira would need to return to set for season three of the _Sunrise Bay_ reboot. The entire Rose family had converged to visit Alexis on this trip, and this afternoon the plan was shopping, which Patrick had gone along with good-naturedly. He didn’t care about the shopping, but it was still fun to be in a city like this, to people-watch as Moira, Alexis, and David orbited around him. Johnny Rose, meanwhile, was meeting with an old friend and hadn’t joined them for this particular outing. 

Alexis and David were several feet behind him and Moira, standing outside the Burberry store and arguing about the merits of a coat. Patrick assumed that even had he lingered to listen, what they were saying would have gone in one ear and out the other. So since Moira had taken his arm a few minutes before, he continued their slow promenade, figuring her kids would catch up when they got bored with their debate and noticed that they’d been left behind. Moira moved gracefully in platform heels and a vintage silver dress that probably cost more than Patrick’s entire wardrobe, a hat and large sunglasses obscuring most of her face as she attempted to avoid being recognized.

At the very moment that Patrick was thinking this, a middle-aged woman stopped in front of them, her hands flying to her mouth. “Moira Rose? Oh my god, I’m a huge fan!”

So the attempt to hide her identity only went so far, Patrick realized, watching Moira’s reaction. She pulled off her sunglasses and smiled. “I’m out with my family at the moment, but I would be delighted to pose for a quick photograph.”

The fan gave Patrick a once-over, seeming to consider and immediately reject the idea that he might be anyone important. Moira let go of Patrick and leaned in, almost but not quite touching the woman, and smiled wide for the two seconds that it took for the selfie to be taken. 

“They didn’t really kill you off at the end of the last episode, did they? I mean, no one saw your body,” the woman said.

“Now now, surely you don’t think you can dragoon me into revealing spoilers for _Sunrise Bay_ out here on the street like a common newsboy.” Patrick stifled a laugh at the idea of a newsboy out on the sidewalk, selling papers full of TV show spoilers. “But I do appreciate your apprehensiveness about poor Vivian. It would be an inauspicious ending for her if after all this time, her life was snuffed out at the bottom of that cistern, wouldn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Do keep watching!” Moira said with a flourish of her sunglasses to indicate that the woman was dismissed.

“My mom texted me with that same question about your character,” Patrick admitted, holding his elbow out again for her. 

“I was trending the night that episode aired,” Moira said, tucking her hand in the crook of his elbow as they began walking again. 

“You’re very kind to your fans,” he said.

“I remember what it was like to feel like I didn’t have many fans left,” she said in a lower register, her accent less ostentatious, the way it got when she was admitting something real, something true. “I don’t take this revival of my career for granted. Not for a second.”

His heart squeezed in his chest for her, for everything she’d gone through and everything she’d managed to claw her way back to achieve.

“Ooh, that’s a lovely handbag,” she said, leading him over to the window of another store. 

Patrick thought it was hideous, but what did he know? “Do you want to go in?” he asked, looking down the street to see David and Alexis had finally started to wander in their direction, albeit slowly.

Moira shook her head, resuming their walk. “After those years of deprivation, I find I’m still not used to buying things on impulse. Isn’t that curious?”

“I mean, it’s no surprise those years left a mark. And being frugal is… wise.”

She smiled at him, then glanced back in Alexis and David’s direction. “Do you know, I find I’ve almost forgotten what David was like before he was with you, Patrick. He’s so… secure. It used to surprise me, seeing him like that, but now it’s who he is.”

He winced at the idea of taking credit for David’s growth. At the same time, he knew that David still had deep wells of anxiety lurking under the surface. Marriage hadn’t turned either of them into different people, much as they might sometimes look idyllic as a couple from the outside.

Before he could respond, Moira’s phone chirped from inside her large bag. “I bet that’s John,” she said as she rooted around for the device.

“There you are,” Patrick said to David as he and Alexis joined them. 

“Yeah, no thanks to you, just leaving us behind,” David complained while Moira stepped away and spoke into her phone.

Patrick laughed. “We were a half a block ahead of you, David.”

David reached out and put his hands on Patrick’s shoulders. “Yes, but you’re new to the city,” he said with a crooked smile. “You could get lost. Or abducted.”

“I’m sure your mother would have protected me if it came to that.”

Moira finished her call. “I’m going to meet John back at the Plaza and have a little repose before dinner. Shall we reconvene later?”

“We could go back to the hotel too,” Patrick said to David. The Roses were paying for David and Patrick to stay at the same Manhattan hotel, a generous gift that meant they didn’t have to cram themselves into Alexis’ tiny apartment or rent a room in Queens, which David had recoiled at when Patrick suggested it. Pointing out that David had absolutely no logical reason to be picky about hotel rooms, all of which were a step above the place he’d lived for a few years, didn’t sway him.

“I’m still trying to get ideas for your anniversary present,” David said. 

“My goodness, have you been married a year already?” Moira asked. “How time does fly.”

David brought his hands up to his cheeks and shook his head in disbelief. “Oh my god, we’ve been married _two_ years, Mother. At least, in a few weeks we will have.”

Alexis reached over and booped Patrick’s nose. “And Patrick hasn’t even mentioned divorce once yet, David, which is impressive.”

“Mm, eat glass,” David said. Patrick grinned — he’d missed their ridiculous banter.

“There’s a gelato place across the street,” Patrick suggested, pointing. He wouldn’t have minded going back to the hotel to rest, but stopping for ice cream would be a good compromise.

David’s eyes lit up. “My husband knows me so well,” he said.

~*~

Patrick let himself be pushed down into the soft mattress, David’s naked body covering his, his mouth working, wet and insistent, against his jaw. “God, good hotels make me so hot,” David whispered.

Chuckling, Patrick ran a palm over the stubble on David’s cheek and back into his hair. “Then it’s a good thing that your parents’ room is on another floor,” he said. He was still a little tipsy from the wine they’d had during dinner at a very nice restaurant, and the process of getting undressed with David once they got back to their room had been a frantic blur.

“A very good thing.” David reached down and cupped Patrick’s hardening cock. “What are you in the mood for?”

Patrick thrust against the inadequate friction David was giving him. “Can I fuck you?”

David squinted an eye closed. “Don’t think I can do that right now, not with the way I’ve been eating today.”

That was fair; Patrick didn’t think he’d be able to bottom at the moment either, now that he thought about it. “Or you could suck my cock?”

“Mm, yes, I can do that,” David said, already sliding down the bed and positioning himself between Patrick’s legs like he didn’t want to lose this momentum, this sloppy, slightly drunken desperation. 

The first flutter of David’s tongue against him had Patrick throwing his head back and groaning. But then it quickly became clear that David was in the mood to tease, to savor him, licking him from base to tip with swipes of his tongue like his dick was some kind of obscene ice cream treat, and then only taking him inside his mouth with the gentlest of pressure, not giving him enough suction to get anywhere close to coming. Patrick’s fist clenching in David’s hair only made David chuckle in the back of his throat, like Patrick’s impatience was exactly the goal.

David pulled off, replacing his mouth with his slowly jacking fist. “If you’d let me pack the way I wanted to, I’d have you tied up by now so that I could really take my time with you.”

“I wasn’t going to haul an entire suitcase full of sex toys through customs for a one week vacation,” Patrick said, his hips rising in time with David’s hand. “I wasn’t that interested in giving U.S. airport security a thrill.”

“Your loss,” David said, turning and sucking a bruise into the skin of Patrick’s inner thigh.

When his thighs were mottled with hickeys and David was still only giving him incomplete friction with his hand, Patrick surged up from the bed, flipping their positions. “Your turn to be tortured for a little while,” Patrick said, biting David’s lower lip hard enough to make him grunt.

He worked his way over David’s chest, nosing through his chest hair, pausing to suck hard on one of his nipples, scraping his teeth against the skin stretched over the side of his ribs, then further down to position himself between David’s thighs. He tried to hold out, tried to stretch out the time before he took David’s cock in his mouth, but he felt too hungry for it to wait long. The saltiness, the weight of it on his tongue, made Patrick moan. He still could remember the first time he did this, that night at Stevie’s, and how that final tiny doubt that maybe he wasn’t actually gay, maybe it was just some spell that David Rose had woven, evaporated in the face of how much he loved sucking cock. How he powered through that first blowjob fueled by determination and desire, a puzzle piece of his sexuality slotting into place.

Now he knew David’s responses so intimately, he could play him like an instrument. If Patrick wanted David to come in under two minutes, he could usually manage it. Or he could edge him over and over until David was clutching fistfuls of the sheets and begging, voice hoarse with desperation. Tonight he wanted to tease him, to pay him back for the bruises he could feel now on the inside of his own thighs, but his arousal was pushing him to suck harder, to take David deeper, the tip of his cock brushing along Patrick’s soft palate as he drew him in over and over, matching his rhythm to the shallow thrusts of David’s hips. 

“Fuck, I love your mouth,” David gasped. “God, _Patrick_ …” and then he was coming, Patrick letting it pool on the back of his tongue as he soothed David down, slowing and finally pulling off when David relaxed. Patrick swallowed as he wiped saliva from his chin.

“Come up here,” David whispered, gesturing vaguely with one hand. “Let me finish you off. Fuck my mouth.” 

Even in the midst of his intense arousal, Patrick was tempted to joke that David was just offering that so that he didn’t have to move, but he elected to hold that comment in as he shuffled up the bed. David put an extra pillow under his head and then grabbed hold of Patrick’s hips, opening his mouth and letting Patrick push his cock inside. 

Usually Patrick could grab hold of the strong metal bars of their bed when he did this, but in this hotel he only had the faux headboard that was affixed to the wall. He braced one arm against the wall and reached down to thread his fingers through David’s hair with the other, holding him gently in place as he fucked into his mouth.

“God, that’s hot, David. I love the way you take me,” he gritted out, trying to resist the urge to lose too much control, to thrust too deeply even though he knew David could tap out if he needed. Still, it was an overwhelming visual, the sight of his erection sliding into David’s mouth, and it didn’t take long for Patrick to tip over the edge, crying out as he came, fist clenching in his husband’s hair. 

He collapsed at David’s side as David exhaled a long breath, ending on a giggle. “How is the sex between us even better now than it was three years ago?”

Patrick wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical, but he thought about the answer anyway. While he thought about a serious answer, he gave a non-serious one. “It’s the hotel turning you on so much.”

David smiled. “It’s not, though,” he said softly, signaling his desire to have a sincere conversation.

Patrick rolled toward David and settled a hand on his chest, feeling for the thump of his heart. “Because we know each others’ bodies so well,” he said. 

“Mmm. By that logic, when we’re in our eighties, our orgasms will be visible from space.”

“Visible?” Patrick asked, laughing.

“You know what I mean.”

Leaving that aside, Patrick said, “Well, by then I imagine that our aging bodies will have something to say about the sex being all that amazing.”

“Impossible. We’re immortal.”

Patrick lifted his head and pressed a kiss to David’s cheek, and then to his lips. “We’re not.” He knew it wasn’t what David wanted to hear, that he was killing the post-coital mood by saying it, but for some reason he couldn’t stop himself. “If we stay together for our entire lives then there will be messy physical stuff. There’ll be… one or both of our dicks will stop working—“

“Okay, that’s not going to happen.”

“It might happen at some point.”

“You can just feel free to smother me with a pillow if that happens to me,” David said.

“But David, if I murder you, I can’t be the beneficiary of your life insurance,” Patrick replied with a smirk.

“Mmkay.”

“I’ll love you even then, you know,” Patrick said. “When we’re old and wrinkled and have unreliable dicks.”

“That’s very sweet, but can we get back to talking about how great the sex is _now_?” David whined.

Patrick kissed him again. “The sex is excellent.”

David gave him a warm smile, one of those smiles that filled up his whole face and radiated out of his eyes. “It’s nice seeing you so happy.”

Something about the way David said it gave Patrick pause. He pulled back, putting a little bit of space between them. “You say that like it’s a rare thing.”

He could see a spark of worry in David’s eyes. “No, not rare. You’ve been… exhausted a lot this year, and… and I think this vacation came at a good time, that’s all. I’m glad you’re enjoying the city.”

“I _am_ enjoying it,” Patrick said, but his brain was focusing on the first part, the part about how he’d been exhausted. How David had noticed. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want his mental state to be a burden to his husband, or to make him feel like he was in any way lacking. “I’ve been fine.”

“Okay.” David leaned up and kissed him gently. “Let’s get some sleep.”

Patrick shifted over onto his own pillow, watching as David rolled to face the opposite wall, scrunching his pillow under his head. Sometimes Patrick took it as an invitation to be the big spoon, but tonight he turned onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.

He just wasn’t getting as much enjoyment out of things these days, that was all. And that was to be expected, wasn’t it? They’d been running the store for close to four years, so of course the day-to-day tasks had gotten dull. At the same time, the stress of deciding whether it was the right time to open a second location was wearing on him, because no matter how much planning and calculating he did, ultimately it was a gamble. And Patrick wasn’t a gambler.

Meanwhile, the novelty of being a homeowner was wearing off a bit, and he’d found himself focusing on the downsides of it lately more than the upsides. Rather than spending his early mornings in their warm kitchen, looking out onto the back yard and feeling content, he was struggling to wake up when his alarm went off, brushing his teeth and noticing the water-stained vanity for the hundredth time, feeling inadequate because he hadn’t figured out how to fit replacing it into their budget when the Rose Apothecary expansion was looming.

But the truth was, even with all of that, sometimes he did feel happy. He’d been happy while he was planning for this trip to New York with the Roses, looking forward to seeing David with his family again and excited to see what the city was actually like with his own eyes. At times like that, it felt like depression was just in his imagination. It felt like maybe he hadn’t been depressed at all, or that he had been in the winter, but that he was over it now. But at the same time he could feel it lurking in the back of his mind, waiting for a weak moment. Telling him he was a bad son, or a bad husband, or a bad business partner. Telling him that he didn’t deserve David’s love, not when he couldn’t bring himself to get started on fixing up the bathroom.

Patrick lay awake for a long time, listening to David’s sleep-breathing, before finally falling into uneasy slumber himself for a few scant hours before waking with the early morning sun.

While David continued to sleep, Patrick pulled on some underwear and a t-shirt and shifted the curtains aside enough to look out. The view of Central Park from their room was breathtaking, and he paused to wonder how much the Roses had paid for rooms with that view. Unplugging his phone from the nightstand, he went back to the window and took a picture through the glass.

He looked from the window over to David, tousled black hair against acres of white bedding, bare shoulders on display. Patrick took a picture of that too.

After brushing his teeth and taking a shower, Patrick got back into bed to read until a more reasonable hour to wake David up. The rest of the morning passed with a leisurely breakfast and an Uber ride downtown to the Whitney Museum, which David had been talking about visiting for months. It had the added benefit of being close to Alexis’ apartment in Chelsea; they were planning to meet her later in the afternoon. 

Patrick soon learned that he and David had different approaches to art museums. Patrick liked to read the placards about each painting, circling each room methodically as he went from painting to painting. David liked to take it all in for a while from the middle of the room before deciding which paintings to approach for a closer inspection, stepping forward and back as he looked for the best viewing distance. His failure to study the text about each painting didn’t mean he didn’t know things about them, Patrick quickly discovered.

“I love [this one](https://whitney.org/collection/works/5908),” Patrick said as David approached from behind him.

“Mm, I knew you’d be a Hopper fan. What do you like about it?”

Patrick studied the sewing woman’s shoulders, the way her dress bunched, the prominent veins in her hand. “I don’t know, I just like it.”

David was waiting for him to say more, Patrick could tell.

“She looks delicate but also, look at her back and her arm. She’s strong.” Patrick glanced at his husband. “She reminds me of Alexis.”

David pinched his lips together, which could mean he disagreed, or it could mean he agreed but didn’t like that he agreed.

Patrick squinted at the painting again. “So what’s the meaning behind it?”

David waved his hand at that dismissively. “It’s something to do with the post-World War I isolation of the early 1920s, I seem to recall. But it means whatever you want it to mean.”

In the next room, Patrick gravitated toward a couple of strikingly colorful oil [paintings](https://whitney.org/collection/works/635) of [factories](https://whitney.org/collection/works/1098), criss-crossed with lines that carved out contrasting geometric shapes on the canvas. As he was reading the name of the artist, David joined him.

“Charles Demuth was gay, you know,” David said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Mm hmm. He started out doing watercolors of flowers and men in Turkish baths in the nineteen-teens and twenties. Then he switched to painting…” He gestured unhappily at the works Patrick had been admiring. “This.”

“You don’t like these,” Patrick said, although the answer was obvious.

“There’s a theory that he was attempting to shrug off the stigma of being an effeminate man with these Lancaster oil paintings. Also, the art world didn’t take his watercolors that seriously,” David said, twisting up his face like he smelled something bad, and… right. It didn’t take a genius to figure out why David wouldn’t like these paintings.

Patrick nodded, and stepped over to put his arm around David. “Do they have any of the Turkish bath paintings here?”

“Sadly, no,” David said with a smirk, still gazing at the oil paintings. “There’s also a theory that all those smoke stacks are just dicks.”

Patrick barked out a laugh.

Leaving the museum, they went to a nearby café to wait for Alexis. They sat at one of the outdoor tables, a wrought-iron railing topped with pots of white and purple flowers separated them from the foot traffic on the sidewalk. While they waited and David munched on a pastry, Patrick texted the picture he’d taken of Central Park from the hotel room to his parents, telling them that they were enjoying the trip. Then he texted a couple of the photos he’d taken of paintings in the Whitney to his cousin Justin. Justin usually didn’t respond to Patrick’s texts, but occasionally he did.

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** _You should have gone to nyc in june for pride_

Patrick realized that was a topic he’d never talked to David about. “Were you ever here for the Pride parade?” he asked.

David looked up from his book, eyebrows high on his forehead. “Sure, lots of times. I mean, I wasn’t down in the streets with the heaving mass of humanity, but I could usually get an invite to a party along the parade route, back in those days.”

Grinning, Patrick repeated, “Heaving mass of humanity?”

David scoffed. “You know how I feel about crowds.”

Patrick turned back to his phone. _David doesn’t like crowds_ , he typed. _I did learn today about a gay artist who painted a bunch of smoke stacks either to seem less gay or possibly to be super gay. Jury’s out on which._

 _Lol_ , Justin responded.

Patrick smiled at the fact that he’d achieved a successful interaction with his cousin.

“David Rose?” a voice called out, and Patrick looked up to see who was speaking. He got a quick impression of an attractive woman with a stylish haircut and clothes before he looked toward David to gauge his reaction to the approaching woman. As he watched, David put on a simpering smile, the one he used with difficult customers, and held out his hand.

“Eloise,” he said flatly. “What a surprise.”

“David, how dare you not tell me that you were going to be in town?” she said, ignoring the offered handshake and sitting down at their table without invitation. “Oh my god, how are you.” She phrased it as a statement, and Patrick doubted if she cared how David was.

“I’m very good — in town for a few days to visit Alexis.” Patrick felt David’s hand settle on his shoulder, scratching absently. “This is my husband, Patrick. Patrick, this is Eloise; she’s an old friend.”

Eloise’s eyes widened as she took Patrick in. “Hi, nice you meet you,” Patrick said.

“I feel like maybe I heard that you got married? And I didn’t believe it. David Rose wouldn’t get married, I said. No way.”

David’s eyes narrowed. “Well, I did. Two years ago.”

“But you’re not living in the city? Surely you’re not still in… where was it? Somewhere in Canada?”

Here it was, the thing that still nagged at Patrick every time David expressed displeasure with Schitt’s Creek. Every time he acted disgruntled about the lack of restaurant options, or grimaced at Jocelyn’s opinions at a social gathering. Because the reason they were ‘somewhere in Canada’ was that was what Patrick had wanted.

“Our store is in Canada, yes, so that’s where we are,” David said, and to his credit he didn’t look the least bit ashamed of that fact. His fingers continued to move over Patrick’s shoulder. “Patrick and I own a lovely cottage on quite a large plot of land out there for a fraction of the cost of a one bedroom apartment here. We love it.”

“But the culture, David. How do you live without the culture?” Eloise asked.

David smirked. “How much culture did we really take in back in the old days, Eloise? The VIP section at the hottest club of the season isn’t exactly the Guggenheim. Besides, we get back here to visit Alexis regularly.” Regularly meaning once in two years, Patrick thought, although they did intend to visit more often in the future, now that there was more money coming in from their online sales.

Eloise immediately started talking about herself, about parties she’d been to or people she’d seen. Patrick tuned her out — she hadn’t shown any interest in him and the feeling was mutual. He watched people passing by on the street, walking dogs or going quickly to jobs or moving slowly and hesitantly like tourists. Eloise quickly seemed to run out of steam, maybe because David wasn’t hanging as desperately on her every word as she wanted, and she stood from the table. 

“I’ve gotta run, David, but how much longer are you in New York? We really have to catch up.”

“Absolutely,” David said, standing with her. “I’ll text you.” 

They kissed in the vicinity of each other’s cheeks and Eloise loped away, her attention mostly on her phone.

David dropped back into his seat with a puff of air. 

“Nice lady,” Patrick muttered.

“She’s a monster,” David said. “I’m not texting her.”

“Uh huh, I cracked that code.”

David laughed softly. “Wow, she was boring.”

“Probably not as boring as your husband, to be fair.”

That made David’s eyes flash. “You aren’t boring.”

Patrick chuckled, fiddling with a spoon on the table. “Yeah, I’m super interesting. Is it my knowledge of tax law or my books about baseball that do it for you?”

David looked a little bit hurt at that. “Everything about you does it for me,” he said seriously.

Alexis arrived at that point, interrupting them, and Patrick rose from his seat to accept her cheek kisses. David excused himself to the restroom.

Watching him go, Alexis said, “Is he okay?”

“Oh, some old acquaintance of his was just here.” He frowned; that wasn’t what had bothered David. “Actually, I think it’s me that’s been making him anxious.”

“Well, don’t do that, Patrick,” she said with a frustrated groan and a birdlike bob of her head. “Surely you know how to manage David’s anxiety by now.”

“No, I do, but…” What should he say? That he couldn’t exactly be the guardian of David’s emotions when he was struggling with his own? That he swore once, standing with David for the first time in front of their house, to make David happy, and that now he was doubting his ability to do so?

“Anyway, did you guys have fun today?” Alexis asked, unaware of his inner turmoil.

“Yeah,” he said, because he had. “David could have been an art museum tour guide in another life.”

Alexis nodded. “Because he talks too much and thinks too highly of his opinions?”

“I was going to say because he knows a lot about art, but sure, that too.”

“Well, I hope you didn’t wear yourselves out, because Mom and Dad have plans tonight and so _we_ are going to go out and party like the young and vital people that we are.”

Patrick felt exhausted at the prospect of such an outing. “I mean, some of us are getting close to forty; I don’t know if young—”

Alexis flapped her hands. “Ugh, just David. You and I are young still.”

Laughing, Patrick consciously relaxed his shoulders. He could go with Alexis’s flow, surely. He was on vacation, after all. 

Which was how he found himself a few hours later, a tiny bit drunk and grinding against David on the dance floor of a gay bar that Alexis had dragged them to. It was ridiculous and they were maybe too old for this and yet he loved it, loved getting to have this experience that he’d been robbed of by not figuring himself out sooner. Loved being sweaty and a little dizzy and watching a man with criminally nice arms dancing just over David’s left shoulder while David grinned at him.

“I love you,” Patrick shouted over the loud beat, euphoria swelling out from the bubble around him and David to encompass the other people on the dance floor and the DJ and Patrick’s sister-in-law, who appeared to be flirting with the woman tending bar. 

David squeezed his ass in answer. “I’m glad you’re having fun,” he said against Patrick’s ear.

“I am,” Patrick said honestly. At a time like this, unhappiness seemed impossible.


	4. Autumn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note that I've added the tag "Implied/Referenced Underage Sex" to the tags. While Justin has turned 18 by this point and the sex is only discussed in somewhat vague terms with Patrick, there is a 4-year age-difference between participants that some readers might find upsetting.

The first thing that struck Patrick when he awoke was the quality of the light in their bedroom. The days were getting shorter, so why was the sun through the window so bright? He fumbled for his phone, saw the time was 9:23, and sat up with a start. He should have been at the store an hour ago, he thought, his heart starting to pound.

There was also a text notification from David, and he thumbed over it to read it.

 **David:** _You turned your alarm off 3 times so I figured you needed to sleep. I’m opening and you can come in whenever._ ❤️ _you._

Patrick quickly responded with _I’m up now, sorry_ , a stab of guilt in his chest as he fought his way out from under their warm comforter. It was his job to make sure the store opened on time, just as it was David’s to close up without Patrick a few nights a week so that Patrick could get a head start on errands. But now David was carrying his weight because Patrick couldn’t manage to get out of bed on time. He berated himself throughout his morning routine and in the car all the way to the store. He decided on a quick detour to the café to pick up a coffee for David as thanks.

While he waited for Twyla to get his drinks, he spotted Ronnie across the room and gave her a half-hearted wave. She appeared to be finishing up, and she made her way over to the counter slowly, the check for her breakfast in hand.

“How are you, Patrick?”

“Good,” he said, even though it wasn’t anywhere close to the truth.

“Hey, I meant to tell you after the last council meeting but it slipped by mind. There’s an LGBTQIA+ group over in Thornbridge that meets up once a month that you might be interested in. I hadn’t heard anything about them in ages — thought they might have disbanded after marriage equality made some people think there wasn’t anything left we needed to fight for. Back in the day they used to organize protests, letter writing campaigns, things like that. I guess they still do.”

“Oh. That’s cool,” Patrick said, unsure where Ronnie was going with this. Wondering how she managed to rattle off all those letters so easily.

Ronnie huffed, annoyed. “You mentioned that you had missed out on the activism part of it all. This would be an opportunity for that if you were interested.”

Patrick frowned. “Thornbridge is a long drive.”

“Here you go, Patrick,” Twyla said, setting two to-go cups down in front of him.

Rolling her eyes, Ronnie handed her check to Twyla to ring up at the cash register. “Suit yourself.”

“No, I’ll… I’ll definitely look them up,” he said. “Thanks for telling me.”

“Uh huh,” she responded, her skepticism that he would do any such thing obvious in her voice. He couldn’t really blame her for that. He was skeptical too. Waving goodbye to Ronnie’s back as she left the café, Patrick sighed, then paid Twyla for the drinks.

He gave David a wincing smile as he entered the store. David was dealing with customers at the register, so Patrick set the drinks down on the counter and went over to see if any of the people browsing in the back of the store needed any help. Guilt churned in his stomach again, that David had been forced to come in early and work the store alone just because Patrick was too lazy to wake up on time.

When the store had finally emptied out from that little mid-morning rush, Patrick made his way over to David.

“I’m really sorry, David,” he said, picking up his tea from where it was still sitting in the cardboard tray. 

That was David’s cue to be dramatic, to pile on with some teasing scorn for burdening him with opening the store. Patrick would feel perversely better if David flopped down on the counter right now and moaned about how much he had suffered this morning. Instead he gave Patrick a sweet smile and said, “Don’t worry about it.”

It was somehow worse. He didn’t want David’s generosity.

“I can close this evening.”

“You don’t have to do that. Closing is my job on Bethany’s days off,” David said.

“And opening is mine. So let me make up for this morning,” Patrick said, some of his testiness coming out in his voice.

“We don’t need to keep score. You’ve been really tired lately.”

“That’s not an excuse!” He was almost shouting. “David, just let me close.”

Now David looked a little annoyed. “Fine. Oh, also I took care of the car insurance payment.”

Patrick narrowed his eyes. “The what?”

“They called and said they hadn’t gotten our payment? So I paid them over the phone; I hope that’s okay.”

Patrick winced. There was a stack of unopened mail on his desk at home, he could see it in his mind’s eye, and he was pretty sure that the car insurance bill was in that stack. “Sorry, I guess I forgot.” He felt the urge to shout at David even though it wasn’t his fault, even though David had once again done something to help him. Or maybe because David had done something to help him. 

“It’s no problem,” David said matter-of-factly. Then his eyes lit up. “Oh! And Ray called. He said there’s a retail space in downtown Elmdale that just opened up that we might be interested in.”

Doing his best to suppress the swell of panic he felt at that news, Patrick moved to go back into the storeroom behind the counter. “Uh huh.”

“He said it looked about the right size for Rose Apothecary,” David continued, following him. “What do you think? Should we go take a look at it?”

“Maybe,” Patrick said, shuffling a stack of invoices on the table. 

David huffed. “Can you not show even the tiniest bit of enthusiasm?”

Patrick looked up and stared at him, caught between anger and guilt, when his phone chimed with a text. Patrick pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** _i might need yr help_

“Hang on, I’ve got to respond to this,” Patrick said as he typed, _What’s up?_

There was a pause, and then dots finally appeared as Justin typed. “Who is it?” David asked, sounding annoyed.

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** _how long would it take you to get to toronto from where you live_

“What the hell?” Patrick muttered as he typed: _4 hours, why?_

“What’s the matter?” David asked.

“Justin is asking me how long it would take me to get to Toronto.”

“Your cousin Justin?”

“Yeah,” Patrick said as the next message appeared.

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** _i’m stuck here and i don’t want to call my parents_

“Okay, I’m calling him,” Patrick said, clicking the header at the top of the text chain and then clicking the call button. 

“Hi,” Justin said when he answered, that tiny word somehow sounding ashamed.

“What do you mean, you’re stuck in Toronto?” Patrick asked without preamble.

“I took a bus here? And now I kind of don’t have anywhere to stay that’s… umm… safe.”

The bus trip from Patrick’s hometown to Toronto must have taken forever, he thought. “Do your parents know where you are?”

The phone speaker crackled with Justin’s heavy sigh. “They think I went with my friend Alison on a weekend trip to a waterpark in Niagara.” 

“So you’ve woven a complicated web of lies is what you’re saying,” Patrick said, meeting David’s eyes. David grimaced with a mixture of sympathy and intense curiosity.

“I came here to meet someone, but…” Justin sighed again, and this time it sounded laden with tears. 

Patrick took the phone away from his ear to look at the time. “If I leave now I might be able to be there by 2:30. Can you text me with where you’ll be?”

“Are you going to call my parents?” Justin asked.

Patrick hesitated. He did need to tell them, but he didn’t know what was going on yet, and he didn’t want Justin to change his mind and disappear into the city, never to be found. “Let’s talk about that later,” he said. “For now, just let me know where you are.”

As soon as he’d disconnected the call, he met David’s eyes regretfully. 

David waved his hand to dismiss the apology that he could probably read on Patrick’s face. “Go.”

“He said he took a bus all the way to Toronto to meet someone, and it sounds like something bad happened.” Patrick said, his mind immediately going to all kinds of dark places.

David nodded like he had guessed as much from hearing Patrick’s side of the conversation. “I’ve been there. Well, in my case, it was taking the jet without permission to Berlin, but same idea. Go get him. I’ll take care of the store today.”

The drive felt interminable. Patrick tried to distract himself with an audiobook so that he wouldn’t think about the kind of man that would lure a boy to Toronto, and what that man might have done to him. It didn’t work. He eventually turned the book off, realizing that he hadn’t taken in a word of the story, and switched to music.

At the end of three and a half hours (he’d exceeded the speed limit a lot), Patrick parked in front of the diner that Justin had sent him the address for and went inside. He spotted the boy immediately in a booth, hunched over his phone, and Patrick steeled himself, walked over, and slid into the booth across from him.

“Do you want me to get you something to eat before we get on the road?” Patrick asked.

Justin shrugged. “You don’t have to do that.”

Patrick plucked one of the laminated menus out of the holder and opened it. “All I’ve had today is toast. I need to eat anyway. Are you sure?”

“Did you call my parents?” Justin asked.

“Not yet.”

Sighing, Justin grabbed a menu for himself.

Once a bored waitress had come over and taken down their orders for burgers and fries, Patrick leaned back in the booth and folded his arms. “Tell me what happened.”

Justin seemed braced for an argument, and he came out swinging. “Do you get that there’s only one other gay guy in my whole school? One. So it’s not like there’s anyone for me to date there.”

Patrick nodded. “I get that.”

“So I met this guy Mike on TikTok — I followed him, and he followed me, and we ended up DMing each other a lot.” Justin narrowed his eyes. “Please don’t ask me what TikTok is.”

“I don’t need to ask you what TikTok is,” Patrick protested, although really he only had the vaguest idea. 

“We really… vibed with each other, and he goes to school here in Toronto so he invited me to come visit him for the weekend.”

“When you say he goes to school here…”

Justin huffed. “He goes to college here.”

“So he’s a few years older than you.”

“Four years is not that big of a deal.”

Patrick agreed with that in theory, but when one person is barely eighteen and the other is twenty-one or twenty-two, it could very well be a big deal. So far Justin had said nothing to soothe Patrick’s worries, and he felt like he needed to know the worst of it before he vibrated out of his skin. “Did he pressure you to do something you didn’t want to do?”

Justin squared his shoulders. “I’m not a kid.”

“I know you’re not. That kind of pressure can happen to adults too.”

As quickly as he’s drawn himself up, Justin deflated. “It wasn’t that. I felt like I was ready for… you know.”

Resisting the urge to trot out the old chestnut about how people who were having it needed to be able to say it, Patrick added, “for sex.”

“Yeah. But it… it was awkward and… and _really_ not good and I just… I needed to get out of there this morning.” He put his head down on his folded arms. “I have a non-refundable bus ticket for tomorrow, but I didn’t have anywhere to go tonight, and—”

“Hey,” Patrick said, reaching over and putting a hand on his arm as the waitress showed up with their food. “I’m glad you called me.”

They ate in silence, and then Patrick paid for the meal and led Justin and his overstuffed backpack out to his car. Justin sank into the passenger seat, exhaustion in his every movement. Patrick wondered how much sleep he’d gotten. He sent David a quick text, letting him know that he had Justin and they were on their way back.

“Can I ask you something else?” Patrick ventured.

“I guess.”

“Were you safe with him? With Mike?”

“He used a condom, yeah,” Justin said. 

Patrick heaved a sigh of relief. “Okay, good.” He started the car and pulled out into traffic. “If you’re going to be sexually active with multiple people, or, you know. With people you don’t know very well, it would still be good to get tested regularly. It’s a good habit to get into.”

“What, am I supposed to go to my pediatrician and ask him to test me for herpes and HIV and stuff?” 

Patrick mulled that over. “Back when I was your age, there was a clinic about an hour away that I know people would go to for testing and, like, abortions. We can look it up when we get back to my place.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

They settled into silence, Justin staring out the window and Patrick focusing on driving carefully. 

“I thought you were going to be a lot harder on me for going to meet a guy alone or whatever,” Justin eventually said.

“Well, don’t get me wrong, it was incredibly stupid to go hundreds of kilometers from home without telling anyone where you would be, to meet a guy that you’d only communicated with online. You’re lucky you weren’t sexually assaulted or murdered.”

“There it is,” Justin said, sinking lower in his seat.

“But I sympathize with doing a reckless, stupid thing for love.” He thought about going into business with a guy he didn’t know very well in part because he’d finally, for the first time, recognized that he had romantic feelings for another man. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out with him.”

Another long silence passed. “I thought it would be… I mean, I knew it wouldn’t be like porn, but I’d read some stuff online, and he said he knew what he was doing, and I thought it would be…” In his peripheral vision, Patrick could see Justin cover his face with his hands. 

“What?”

“I knew the sex might not be amazing, the first time, especially… you know. Doing… you know.”

“I don’t know, actually. Do you want me to guess?” Patrick said with a smirk, trying not to sweat too much over this conversation.

“Bottoming,” Justin finally said, his hands back over his face. The word was somewhat muffled.

“Oh.” _Jesus, kid, you couldn’t start with a handjob?_ Patrick thought. His thoughts immediately went to his own first experience with that act, at Ray’s house with David while Ray was out playing poker. It was a very good memory. “I mean, it _can_ be amazing, even the first time, with a patient partner.” He was very glad to have the road to focus on; he didn’t think he could have had this conversation looking his cousin in the eye.

Justin didn’t respond to that for a minute, back to staring out the window. Then he finally said, “Yeah, Mike was… not that, I guess.”

“He didn’t, umm… hurt you, did he?”

Justin snorted bitterly. “Not… I guess he just didn’t care if I enjoyed it or not.”

“Then he’s a complete asshole and you’re well rid of him,” Patrick said, thinking that he’d like to punch this Mike guy in the face. Convincing a young kid (albeit above the age of consent) to board a bus to come all the way to Toronto, and then to treat him like that… “I hope you blocked his number.”

“Yeah, did that while I was waiting for you to pick me up,” Justin said, his voice wavering. “God, I’m so stupid.”

“No, stop it. You’re not stupid. You did something rash and… and dangerous, but for understandable reasons.” He debated what to say next. “I will need to call your parents. I don’t need to tell them everything, not the… sexual details. But I can’t hide this from them. For one thing, we need to figure out how to get you back home.”

“I can take the bus.”

Patrick frowned. “I don’t feel great about putting you on a bus alone after what you’ve been through.”

“I’ll be fine,” Justin groused, and Patrick understood that teenage stubbornness, that visceral hatred of being babied. 

“I know you will be,” he said.

He took Justin straight to the house when they got to Schitt’s Creek. Justin looked around with interest at his surroundings while Patrick first texted David to give him a quick summary of what happened, then went into their office/guest bedroom, closed the door, and phoned his cousin Sara.

“Patrick!” she said in answer to his call. “How are you? Everything okay with your parents, I hope?” Her quick words betrayed that immediate worry when a distant family member calls, that something terrible has happened.

“They’re fine. I’m actually calling about Justin.”

“Oh, he’s on a weekend trip with his friend Alison’s family. Did you not try his phone? He told me you guys have been texting, and I can’t thank you enough for being a friend to him.” 

Patrick steeled himself. “Yeah, so what I have to tell you is that he’s not with Alison. He went to Toronto to meet a boy. It, umm, went badly, and he called me. I drove out there and picked him up and brought him back to Schitt’s Creek.”

There was a moment of silence, and Patrick imagined Sara trying to process all of that information at once. “What do you mean, it went badly. Is he okay?”

“He’s okay. Heartbroken, probably, but he’s not really talking about that. He’s safe.” Patrick said.

“Was he… did he have sex with this boy?”

Patrick ran a hand over his face. “Remember how you told me that I could keep his confidence as long as he was being safe? I told you the unsafe part, the… the getting on a bus to a big city to meet someone from the internet part. The rest of it, I think you’re going to have to ask him.”

She sighed. “Thank you for going to pick him up, Patrick. God, that must have taken you all day.”

“It’s okay. I’m happy to help,” he said, because he was. At the very least, it had effectively distracted him from his own problems for several hours. “He wants to take a bus back home. Are you okay with that? He can sleep here tonight and then I can put him on a bus tomorrow?” 

“No, I should come pick him up,” she said, but she sounded uncertain. For good reason; it would be a fourteen-hour round trip for her to do that.

“I’ll watch him to make sure he gets on the right bus,” Patrick said. “And send you the schedule so that you’ll know when to expect him. Okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.” Her voice trembled, like the implications of what might have happened to her son were hitting her belatedly. “God, he could’ve been—”

“I promise he’s okay, Sara. Do you want to talk to him right now?” Patrick asked, opening the door and walking back out to the main part of the house. 

“Yes, please.” 

Patrick found Justin in the kitchen, standing awkwardly with his hands shoved in his pockets. “Your mom wants to talk to you,” he said, handing him his phone. He left the room to give Justin some privacy and went to make up the bed in the guest room. As he pulled sheets down from a shelf in the linen closet, it occurred to him that he’d been a little bit jealous of Justin, before: self-aware enough to understand his sexual orientation as a teenager and self-assured enough to come out to his parents. But it was just another path, another person’s journey to being their whole self — not better or worse than Patrick’s path, just different. And plagued with its own pitfalls.

Justin found him to give him back his phone as Patrick was smoothing a quilt over the neatly made bed.

“How mad was she?” Patrick asked.

“Pretty mad,” Justin said. “I’m definitely going to be grounded, but it’s not like I have anywhere to go anyway.” His hands went into his pockets again.

Patrick clapped him on the back. “Well, you can worry about that tomorrow. Want to come help me make dinner?”

That was how David found them when he got home. To his credit, David acted like a teenage houseguest was a normal occurrence, asking Justin politely about his high school and his interests and avoiding anything about the reason he was at their house.

At least, he did that until they were finishing dinner, when David draped his arm over the back of Patrick’s chair and said, apropos of nothing, “When I was sixteen, I convinced my dad’s pilot that I had permission to take the family’s private jet to Germany to meet a guy that I only knew over AOL Instant Messenger.”

Justin frowned with confusion. “What’s AOL Instant Messenger?”

David suppressed a whine. “Okay, never mind that part. That’s not the important part.”

“What happened?” Justin asked.

“The guy turned out to be in his forties and into a lot of kinky shit that I barely knew the terms for, much less—”

“David, I don’t know if this is an appropriate story—” Patrick began.

“All I mean is, you can do stupid stuff as a teenager and survive it and… and learn from it, I guess,” David said. “I don’t know! I’ve been where you are, that’s what I’m saying,” he huffed. “And one other thing, in case Patrick didn’t mention it. Something I didn’t know back then.” David was giving Justin a serious look. “Consent can be revoked at any time, for any reason. No matter what you may have consented to before.” 

“Okay,” Justin said, blushing. “Thanks.” Then he wrinkled his nose. “Private jet?”

“My life was very different back then,” David said with an imperious sniff.

~*~

Patrick gave David a wan smile when he joined him in bed that night, after they’d spent the evening playing board games and watching TV with Justin before finally packing him off to the guest room to sleep. “Thanks for helping to keep Justin entertained.”

David got under the covers and let out a long breath. “He’s a good kid; he’ll be okay. He’s got that Brewer earnestness.”

Patrick laughed. “Brewer earnestness?”

“You heard me.” 

They settled into silence, but neither of them reached to turn off their lamps. Patrick considered picking up a book and trying to read, but the hours and hours of driving had left him shattered. Maybe he’d just go to sleep.

Before he could turn off his light, he became aware of David looking sidelong at him. As Patrick so often could, he could read David’s face easily: David had something he wanted to say that he wasn’t saying. 

“What is it?” Patrick asked, rolling to face David, one hand tucking up under his pillow.

“Nothing,” David said quickly, his eyes widening a little before he averted his gaze.

“David.”

There was a pause as David appeared to weigh his words. Every millisecond edged Patrick’s worry higher. “There was something I wanted to talk to you about earlier, but now with all of this Justin stuff, it seems like a bad time,” David said, not meeting his eyes.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

David exhaled audibly. “Don’t get mad at me.”

“Why would I get mad at you?”

“Because… look, I spent a lot of my younger years in therapy, and I’ve spent more years than that struggling with anxiety, you know that. I’ve had panic attacks. I still have spiraling, intrusive thoughts sometimes. Mental health is… it’s complicated.”

Patrick felt a cold spike of panic, and he pulled himself up into a seated position against the headboard. “Yeah.”

“So I of all people know that there’s no shame in needing help.”

“David—”

“I might be totally off base, but I think it’s possible that you’re depressed and it might not be a bad idea for you to see a professional,” he rushed out, wincing, his face twisting like he was bracing for an argument.

“I don’t… I’m fine.” The words came out without his permission, a denial from deep in his gut. He needed to be fine. He needed David to not be saying these things.

David sat up next to him, his hand reaching over tentatively to touch Patrick’s thigh. “You don’t seem fine,” he almost whispered.

Patrick felt a swirl of emotions: irrational anger and shame but also relief. Relief that David was putting a name to the thing that Patrick feared, and that he was pointing out a path that Patrick could choose to walk like it was no big deal. Like it was normal. But the shame momentarily rose up and dominated his mix of feelings, and Patrick drew his knees up and leaned his forehead against them.

“I mean I get it, I’m not an easy person to be married to, I know that, and—”

Patrick lifted his head. “What? David, no.” He grabbed David’s hand and squeezed it tight and swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. “ _You_ are the only bright spot in a sea of… of…” Lacking a suitable metaphor, Patrick brought David’s hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles. “It’s nothing to do with being married to you. I’m grateful every day that I’m married to you.” His eyes burned with unshed tears. “I’m just… I’m so sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for?” David asked softly.

Patrick let go of David’s hand and put his own hands together, twisting his wedding ring. “You shouldn’t have to deal with me like this.”

David’s arm went around his shoulders. “What are you talking about,” he said, like Patrick was being silly.

Patrick met his eyes again. “I’m supposed to be stable. I’m supposed to protect you and take care of you and—”

“Okay, but that’s not the way marriage works?” David said. “Sometimes I can be the protector. You can be the one that falls apart sometimes.”

“But that’s not who you married.”

“Patrick, I married _you._ ”

Swiping away the tears from his eyes in frustration, Patrick resisted the urge to get out of bed to put some space between himself and David. “I wasn’t raised to talk about my feelings, you know that. Or at least, not to talk about difficult feelings.” He plucked at a loose thread on the blanket over his legs.

David chuckled. “I do know that, yes.”

“So I’ll probably be terrible at therapy.”

Kissing his cheek, David said, “Well, you’re naturally gifted at too many things, anyway. It’s past time for you to be terrible at something.”

“I’m terrible at a lot of things lately.”

“Mmkay, you’re going to learn about a thing called ‘recurring negative thoughts’ if you end up seeing a therapist,” David said, scratching affectionately at Patrick’s shoulder. “I think you and I will be able to bond over that one.” 

Patrick leaned against David, in the circle of his arms, and let out a heavy breath. Not for the first time in their relationship, he felt like an enormous weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. “Thank you, David.”


	5. Winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's nothing I can say that can get across how touched I've been by the comments on this fic. The number of people who have shared things about their own struggles with mental health -- I'm not worthy of it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

“So how was your week?” Jessica asked.

Patrick always felt like he should plan before therapy what he was going to talk about, but he never remembered to do that.

“It was a little crazy. The holidays at the store always are, although it’s very lucrative. The money we make in December will carry us through at least half of the upcoming year,” he said, pinching the webbing on one hand between his thumb and forefinger of the other. 

“And did you feel more equipped to handle that? The busy store, and all your responsibilities around that? Especially with Christmas a few days away?”

Patrick shrugged, feeling obstinate. “I don’t know.”

Jessica let a silence settle, waiting for him to talk. Patrick hated this part; it made him feel like he was failing at therapy when he didn’t know how to fill that silence. What the right answer was. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the sofa cushions, calling her bluff.

Finally, she relented and spoke, and Patrick felt like he’d won a round of whatever game they were playing. “You’ve never said much in here about your sexual orientation other than to talk about your husband and to say that things with your family are good. Was it always that way?”

Patrick tried not to roll his eyes. He knew this would be coming eventually. He’d been avoiding the subject of Rachel or his coming out process because he knew it would be something Jessica would fixate on. “I’m not depressed because of being gay, or… or anything to do with that. I love being gay.”

She smiled genuinely. “I’m glad. But humor me.”

“My parents always accepted me,” he said quickly, but that felt like a lie even though it was technically true. 

“How old were you when you came out?” Jessica asked.

Patrick let out a frustrated sigh, seeing no way to avoid the truth now. “I was… I was in denial about being gay for a long time.” _Might as well get it all out_ , he thought. “When I was twenty-nine I broke off an engagement to my high school sweetheart — who was a woman — and moved away from my hometown. Pretty soon after that, I realized I was gay.”

“That must’ve been hard,” Jessica said.

“Yeah, but once I got through it and… and got together with David, I’d never been happier.”

He couldn’t help but see the smile she gave him in response to that as patronizing. “New love can flood the body with so many good chemicals that it swamps out all of the bad ones.”

Patrick narrowed his eyes. “Are you saying I wasn’t happy?”

“No, I’m saying that the way you’ve framed things in some of our past sessions — that you were depressed before you moved here, and then you weren’t, and now for some reason you’re depressed again… that may not be the right way to frame it. Do you think perhaps it puts a lot of pressure on David as the source of your happiness?”

“I don’t put pressure on David,” Patrick protested.

“Is it possible that you put pressure on yourself, then? When it comes to your relationship with David and its importance in your life?” Jessica asked. 

Patrick huffed and didn’t answer. Now she was contradicting herself from one sentence to the next.

“When did you come out to your family?” she asked.

“That isn’t why I’m depressed either,” he said.

Jessica sighed like he was finally challenging her constant state of serene acceptance. “Untangling the web of depression isn’t straightforward. It might be helpful to pull on different threads and see what they’re connected to. Okay?”

Patrick supposed that made sense. “Okay.” Then after another pause, he admitted, “It took me a while to come out to my parents.”

“Why is that?”

He stared at Jessica’s bookshelf for several seconds, his eyes running over the titles without reading them. “I worried that my parents wouldn’t be okay with it. They didn’t talk about gay people when I was a kid, really. Or when they did, they made it sound like a sad thing that we needed to tolerate because it wasn’t a choice. You know, that brand of ‘tolerance’ that is just that and nothing more.”

She shot him a sympathetic look. “It’s understandable why you were hesitant to come out to them.”

“But they were great about it. It wasn’t long after coming out to them that I asked David to marry me, and they were great. They love him, and all my worries were unfounded,” he said, trying to figure out why tears were threatening to spill over.

Jessica took a few seconds to rearrange herself, setting her ever-present portfolio aside and leaning forward on with her elbows on her knees. “I understand that, looked at a certain way, you’ve had a purely positive experience with coming into your sexuality. You had David, who from what you’ve said before is a very loving person. And based on what you’ve told me, you live in an accepting community. And then your parents stepped up and were there for you when you asked them to be. That’s all wonderful, and not to be discounted. But it doesn’t change the fact that for all of your formative years, when maybe on some subconscious level you did know that you were gay, or at least different in some fundamental way, you didn’t feel like your parents or the community you were living in would accept you. That kind of experience leaves a mark, even though everything turned out fine.”

She smirked, leaning backwards again. “Or not. Perhaps your serotonin is low due to simple physiology and I’m completely off the mark.”

Patrick felt strangely reassured by this honesty, this admission that she knew that she didn’t know everything. “So I need medication, then?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Medication might help. Or cognitive behavior therapy could help you. Or both together.”

His reassurance quickly dissolved, leaving Patrick wanting to scream at his therapist, _fix me, goddammit!_ Instead he said, “That all sounds very nebulous.”

She grinned. “From what I know about you so far, I bet that’s driving you crazy, and I’m sorry about that. Can you bear with me for a little while, though? Work through the process?”

He sighed. “I’ll try.”

~*~

Patrick drove past the empty storefront on Elmdale’s main street as he was leaving his therapy appointment. He’d noticed every week that the ‘for lease’ sign was still in the window. After the second time he saw it, he’d texted Ray to ask if that was the space he’d mentioned to David. David hadn’t said anything about the second Rose Apothecary location in a while, but it didn’t take a genius to guess that he was still thinking about it, and probably wondering when Patrick would be ready to seriously entertain the idea again.

On impulse, he pulled into one of the parking spaces that lined the street and got out of the car, walking over to the empty storefront. The windows were covered in paper, but he could see enough through the gaps to make out that it had a scuffed up hardwood floor. It would need to be refinished, he thought, but it looked like it was in pretty good shape. 

The smell of coffee attracted Patrick’s attention, and he looked over to see that there was a coffee shop next door. _Grind House_ , the sign that hung under the awning said. Curious, Patrick went over and opened the door.

The barista looked up and waved. It being around two in the afternoon on a weekday, the place was mostly empty other than two people at a table in the corner who were huddled over laptop computers. The shop was decorated tastefully for Christmas, and he thought David would approve of the warmth and coziness of the space.

“Hey, what can I get you?” the barista — Taylor, her name tag read — asked him with a smile. Tattoos snaked out from under the sleeves of her t-shirt, black ink against dark brown skin.

“A small earl grey tea?” he asked.

“Sure thing. Is that it? We’ve got a few pastries left.”

His eyes strayed over to the pastry case. “Yeah, could I get a couple of those butter tarts to go? My husband is a real connoisseur.”

Taylor grinned at him. “Smart man.”

“Hey, what do you know about the empty space next door? Do you know if there’s been any interest in it?”

“Oh man, I’m still bummed about that. It used to be a comic book shop. I was afraid to go in there for the longest time — comic stores aren’t necessarily the most welcoming places to black queer women, you know? But the old guy that ran it was super nice. I remember he made a point of telling me when Ta-Nahisi Coates started writing _Captain America_.”

“What happened to the store?”

She shrugged. “Amazon drove him out of business, I guess. That’ll be $9.25,” she said ringing up his tea and butter tarts. As Patrick put his debit card in the reader, she added, “Why do you ask?”

“Oh.” He scratched his cheek. “My husband and I run a store in Schitt’s Creek. Rose Apothecary?”

“Holy shit, really? A friend gave me some of your lotion for my birthday. It’s great.”

Patrick swelled with pride. “Thanks. Anyway, we’re considering opening a second location in Elmdale.”

Taylor smirked, handing him his tea and a box with the tarts. “Sorry, I can’t allow you to have a store right next door to my coffee shop. I’ll spend all my profits there.”

Laughing, Patrick accepted his purchases. “Oh, well. Guess we’ll have to look for another place, then. Although David would return the favor, I’m sure.”

“What’s your name?” Taylor asked.

“It’s Patrick Brewer,” he said, setting the tea down again to shake her hand. 

“Nice to meet you, Patrick. I’m Taylor. And I hope you guys get the space.”

“I… do too,” he said, surprised to find that he meant it.

The store was bustling when he got back to Schitt’s Creek, and David and Bethany were both busy with customers. Patrick put the box of butter tarts in the back room and went to work restocking Christmas decorations. Given how many decorations they sold every holiday season, Patrick had to assume that by now every Christmas tree in Elm County was fully outfitted in David Rose’s aesthetic.

As soon as David finished with the customers he was helping, Patrick went over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I got you something for your afternoon break,” he said. “There’s a white box on the table in the back.”

David’s eyes lit up, and he hurried into the back before he could be waylaid by another harried holiday shopper. 

They didn’t have a chance to exchange any more conversation until Bethany finally flipped the sign on the door to _Closed_ and locked up. Patrick felt dead on his feet, but he had to admit that the thought of all the money in the cash register made him feel pretty good. Bethany went to work cleaning the windows while David leaned against the center table.

“Oh my god, Patrick, where did you get those butter tarts? Those are the best ones I’ve had in years.”

Patrick walked over and put his arms around his husband, pulling him into a hug. “A little coffee shop in downtown Elmdale that happens to be next to an empty store that I believe Ray mentioned to you a couple of months ago.”

David pulled out of the hug, his eyes darting back and forth as he studied Patrick’s expression. “It’s still vacant?”

Nodding, Patrick leaned up and kissed David’s cheek. “We should call Ray after Christmas and go take a look at it.”

“Are you sure?”

Patrick shrugged. “No, I’m scared as hell. Among other things, I’m afraid I’m going to miss having days like this with you, working together in our store. But I want to go look.”

David kissed his lips gently. “Okay.”

~*~

Stevie stood shivering on their back porch, bundled up in her hat and puffy parka. “It’s way too cold for this,” she said.

Patrick exhaled pot smoke in a crystalline cloud of breath and handled the joint back to her. “Our families are getting here tomorrow and I don’t want the house to smell like weed.” He giggled. “It doesn’t match David’s holiday aesthetic.”

His phone chimed, and he took it out to look at it, expecting a complaint from David. Instead the text was from his cousin. There were no words, just a picture of Justin pressed cheek to cheek with another boy.

 **Patrick:** _Who’s this?_

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** _his name is Jonah_

 **Patrick:** _Very cute. And closer to your age, I hope?_

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** 🙄  
_you sound like my mom_  
_he’s 18_

 **Patrick:** _Good._  
_Merry Christmas, Justin._

 **Justin** 🌈 **:** _thanks_  
_you too_

Then a text arrived from David, just as Patrick expected. _She’s got even more luggage than last year._

Patrick laughed. _Maybe it’s a lot of presents for you,_ he texted back.

 **David:** _You give my sister entirely too much credit._

 **Patrick:** See you soon.

“Why are you suddenly so fucking popular?” Stevie groused, her teeth chattering, handing him the joint back as he put away his phone.

“Sounds like Alexis’s flight got in on time,” he said. “And my cousin Justin has a new… boyfriend, I guess?” He took another hit.

“I can’t stand this anymore; I’m going inside,” Stevie said, taking the half-smoked joint from him and carefully extinguishing it, then putting it in a crumpled sandwich bag that she produced from her coat pocket. Patrick followed her back into the house. “Is this the cousin that you rescued a while ago?”

“How many gay cousins do you think I have?” he asked, pulling his coat off.

“I mean, statistically? Given how many cousins you have? More than one.” She flopped down on the sofa and stretched out on her back. “So are you liking your therapist any better?”

Patrick dropped into the overstuffed chair across from her. “I don’t know. As I predicted, she’s starting to fixate on my sexual orientation and…” He gestured airily in a very David way. “All that.”

Stevie turned her head and regarded him balefully. “The fact that you were in denial about being gay until you were thirty? And didn’t come out to your parents until you were ready to ask David to marry you? Is that what ‘all that’ is?”

“Fuck off,” Patrick grumbled.

“I’m just saying, there’s probably some stuff to unpack there.”

“Stevie, I’m completely comfortable with being gay,” he said. 

“Didn’t say you weren’t. It’s not about you being gay, but maybe it’s about how you get so wrapped up in your obligations to other people that you lose track of yourself. Or that you’re so obsessed with not disappointing the people you care about that you have a hard time being truthful about who you are or what you need.”

Patrick blinked. “Wow. Maybe _you_ should be my therapist.”

Stevie laughed. “The problem is, I need to be high to have these deep insights.”

They settled into comfortable silence for a few minutes. Finally Patrick admitted, “I don’t like the way it makes me feel cracked open.”

“What does?” Stevie asked, her mind clearly having wandered.

“Therapy.”

“Oh. Yeah, I don’t think I could deal with that either,” Stevie said.

“It’s like… you know how if you pick up a big rock in moist soil, there’ll be all these bugs underneath it?”

“Ew,” Stevie said in a perfect imitation of David, and the two of them burst into gales of laughter for a while. When Stevie finally got control of herself, she said, “Sorry, what about the bugs?” 

He wiped away tears from his cheeks. “It was a metaphor for my brain. I’ve got a lifetime of practice not moving those rocks. I don’t know if I want to know what’s underneath them.”

“Yeah, I get that.” She stretched her toes out, brushing them against the arm of the sofa. “You know you’ll be okay though, right?”

Patrick felt a swell of love for Stevie and he would have hugged her, but it would probably be weird. Also he was comfortable in his chair. Maybe he’d hug her later.

When David arrived from retrieving Alexis from the airport, Patrick put his coat back on to help with the luggage. David opened a bottle of wine and turned the lamps in the living room off, leaving only the light from the Christmas tree to illuminate the four of them as they settled in to talk. 

They told Alexis about the new location in Elmdale that they were considering leasing, and she made some marketing suggestions that were good enough that David went and fetched his journal from the bedroom so that he could make some notes.

“One thing I’ve seen businesses do to get market penetration is sponsor relevant conferences,” Alexis said. “Like, professional association meetings. Then they get their business name and logo printed on everything for the conference — tote bags, lanyards, USB sticks, all that stuff.” Her free hand that wasn’t holding her wine glass flopped around to indicate all of the stuff.

“We don’t really have general store conferences,” Patrick said, bemused.

Alexis rolled her eyes. “But it works for other events too. Summer festivals, parades, whatever.”

“Elm Valley has a pumpkin festival every year,” Stevie said.

Patrick was starting to have a germ of an idea related to what Alexis had said. He sipped his wine and filed it away to mull over later, when he was sober. 

Tomorrow, Johnny and Moira and his own parents would arrive and things would take a turn for the chaotic, but for right now, Patrick could enjoy the warmth of David’s hand on his shoulder as his husband bantered happily with his sister and his best friend. Leaning into the crook of David’s arm, Patrick smiled and tried to soak up all of the love in the room, an inoculation against the darkness that might lurk around the next bend in the road.

“Merry Christmas, sweetheart,” David murmured against his spine later in their bed. Their kisses had been drowsy and a little bit drunk as they decided that sex was happening tonight in spite of their houseguests. Alexis was in the guest bedroom and Stevie had zonked out on the living room sofa, David tucking an afghan around her shoulders before he and Patrick went to bed themselves.

“It’s not Christmas yet,” Patrick said with a chuckle, writhing, pressed against the sheets as David worked him up and up.

“I know it’s not technically Christmas, but tonight was so nice,” David murmured into Patrick’s shoulder, words alternating with kisses. “It filled me with holiday spirit.”

Patrick tried not to laugh, he really did, but it was a losing battle. He made an attempt to smother his giggles into his pillow.

“If you say something about me _filling_ you with the holiday spirit, it’s over between us.” The things he was doing to Patrick with his fingers belied that statement.

Laughing again, Patrick pushed his hips back against David’s hand, and then his laughter turned into a moan, and then neither of them said anything coherent for a long time.

~*~

The first town council meeting of the new year came on a grey January afternoon, the threat of snow on the horizon. Everyone was subdued and low energy, even Roland, and Patrick felt drowsy, struggling a little bit to pay attention and type at the same time that they discussed several budgetary issues. A lot of the topics were the same every meeting, with tiny, incremental changes almost too small to detect. Or worse, they were recurring issues that indicated no progress had been made at all. 

When they got to the bottom of the agenda, Ronnie asked if there was any new business, and Patrick almost didn’t say anything. The idea that had occurred to him during the holidays had seemed strong on a happier day. Today, he wasn’t sure he had the energy to argue for it. But then he thought about the things Ronnie had said to him about queer activism, and he thought about Taylor and her coffee shop, and he opened his mouth.

“Have we ever considered having something in Schitt’s Creek for Pride?” he asked.

Ronnie raised her eyebrows. “What, like a parade?”

“No offense, but it might be kind of a sad little parade,” Roland said.

“No, not a parade. Like, a street festival. Tents with food and other vendors and LGBT educational booths. Opportunities for people to find out about meetings in the area. Maybe a stage with speeches and musical performances. And we don’t have to limit it to only Schitt’s Creek. I looked into it a little, and even Elmdale doesn’t have anything like it. We could draw vendors and patrons from all over Elm County.”

Ronnie crossed her arms. “Sounds like a way to line your own pockets. I assume Rose Apothecary would be one of the vendors?”

Patrick met her gaze. “I’m sure the rest of council could be counted on to keep us on a level playing field with everyone else. Come on, Ronnie. Can you honestly say it wouldn’t be a good thing for the community? And a good way to bring money into the town?”

She tilted her head in acquiescence. “Put together a formal proposal and we can vote on it at the next meeting.”

“I’m going to vote ‘yes,’” Bob stage-whispered to Patrick.

“Thanks, Bob.”

After the meeting had adjourned, Patrick went over to Ronnie. “I thought later this month I’d go to that Thornbridge LGBTQIA+ meeting you told me about. See what they’re doing and make some connections. Ask if they’d be interested in helping out with our Pride festival.”

Ronnie stared at him for a second. “Your festival idea hasn’t been approved yet,” she said.

“Assuming it’s approved,” he said, unable to keep himself from grinning. “Would you like to go with me?”

“You want me to spend hours in a car with you, driving to Thornbridge. Really.”

“Come on, Ronnie. Someday you and I are going to have to bury the hatchet for good.” He put on his most guileless expression, the one that caused David to accuse him of weaponizing his eyes. “Why not in service to the queer community, of which we are both pillars?” 

She almost, for a split second, looked like she was going to crack a smile. Instead she sighed. “Fine. Let me know when it is. I’ll see if I’m available.”

~*~

They celebrated signing the lease for the new store with pizza at David’s favorite spot in Elmdale. There were paper hearts colored by children in the front window, and it reminded Patrick that he only had a few days to find a suitably tacky gift for David for Valentine’s Day. It wasn’t worth it if he couldn’t get David to threaten to divorce him on this, David’s most hated of holidays.

While they waited for their pizza, Patrick reached across the red and white checkered tablecloth and took David’s hand. “Thank you,” he said.

David had been fiddling with his phone, but at the sound of Patrick’s voice, he set it face-down on the table and gave Patrick his full attention. “What for?”

“For being there for me so many times this past year. For… for putting up with me at my worst.”

A crooked smile threatened to erupt on David’s face. “Patrick, you know your worst is still pretty good, right?”

“I hope you’re not still grading me on a Sebastien Raine curve, David.”

David rolled his eyes at that. “ _No_ , I’m just saying that maybe you don’t have the most objective perspective on what being married to you is like.” His eyes softened. “I’m as happy being your husband today as I was the first day. Okay?”

Patrick swallowed around a surprising lump in his throat. “Okay.”

“You’re nervous about the new store,” David surmised.

“I am, but it’s the right decision,” Patrick said with confidence.

“I’m nervous too,” David said. “Don’t mistake my outward confidence for anything other than a thin veneer over all of my anxieties.”

That statement automatically put Patrick into reassurance mode. “The marketing ideas from Alexis are going to be helpful. The customer base in Elmdale is huge and has more disposable income compared to what we’re used to at home. I’ve run some numbers, and I think the revenue from this location may outstrip our Schitt’s Creek location in a matter of months.”

David grimaced. “Well, that somehow makes me feel irrationally protective of our first store. It doesn’t deserve to be the under-achiever.”

Squeezing David’s hand, Patrick said, “Never. I fell in love with you there, and there’s nowhere in the world more important to me than that store.”

“We can make new memories at the new store,” David said softly.

Patrick knew, realistically, that he and David probably wouldn’t be spending that much time together at the new store after they got it open. They’d have to split time between the two locations, and there would be even more work to do out on the road, expanding their vendor base to support the increased demand. 

David seemed to read his thoughts. “And when we spend our days apart, it will make being at home together in the evenings that much more precious.”

“Yeah,” Patrick managed to say, his voice raw. He averted his eyes from David’s piercing gaze, staring out the window between the gaps in the paper hearts. “Can you… can you talk to me more about that?”

David smiled and rubbed his hands together. “Well, imagine a day when I’m at the store here in Elmdale, and you’re at the store back at home.”

“Are you at the one in Elmdale because of Taylor’s pastries?”

“Shhh,” David said, reaching out with a finger like he was going to put it over Patrick’s lips. “I leave the store a little early, letting one of our trusted employees close up, and I bring home some wine and cheese from the store. Maybe some of Heather’s new triple cream.” He closed his eyes like he was having an erotic fantasy about Heather Warner’s cheese.

“Wine and cheese that you pay for,” Patrick said.

“Naturally. Oh, and fresh berries. It’s summer, and there are berries in season. So I set everything up on the kitchen table, just in time for you to arrive home from the other store. And we drink wine and eat cheese and we tell each other all about our days. The sun is setting, and the light is all golden,” David said.

“I like this story,” Patrick replied. “Then what happens?”

“Eventually we move to the sofa. Maybe watch some TV or listen to some music. We put our feet up and finish our wine and you remember something funny that you saw on the internet and you tell me about it. And then when we get tired, we go to bed.”

“What happens then?” Patrick asked as their server set their pizza in front of them and David grabbed a slice.

David’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile and he waggled his eyebrows. “The rest of the story is _very_ interesting, but you’ll have to wait to get home to hear that part.”

“Hmm, okay.” Patrick reached for his own slice of pizza.

“Hey,” David said, drawing Patrick back to looking at him. “I love you. I can’t wait to see what the next year brings for us.”

Patrick smiled. He felt bolstered, lifted up by David’s support and for once, he allowed himself to feel good about it. “Me either, David.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm unfolded73 on tumblr - come yell at me there.


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